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THE GERMAN SCHOOL 
AS A WAR NURSERY 



Andrew Melrose's Distinctive Books 



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The German School as 
a War Nursery 

FROM THE FRENCH 
Pedagogic de Guerre Allemande 



By 

V. H. FRIEDEL 

II 

With an Introduction by 

M. E. SADLER, M.A. 
C.B., LL.D., Litt.D. 



NEW YORK 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1918 



%^ 



v^;n 



This translation is by 
Major Selwyn G. Simpson, D.Litt. 



r 



I desire to express my sincere thanks to 
Dr. Sadler for his inspiring Introduction, 
and to Dr. Selwyn G. Simpson for under- 
taking the translation of my work. 

V. H. F. 
Paris, 
April, 1918. 



INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH 
TRANSLATION 

By Dr. M. E. Sadler 

I 

T T THAT would one not give, in these early 
VV months of the fourth year of the war, for 
the power to go to Germany and, with full know- 
ledge of the language and without one's identity 
being known or questioned, to talk freely with men 
and women of all ranks and opinions ? In some 
degree, Monsieur Friedel's book gives one this 
opportunity. It lifts the veil and shows us some 
of the currents of German educational thought in 
war-time. 

What part can skilfully organized public educa- 
tion play in furthering the welfare and increasing 
the might of a modern State ? This is a subject 
upon which the Germans have arrived at more 
formulated judgments than have the English. I am 
far from thinking that these German judgments are 
wholly sound. On the contrary, they seem to me 
defective in sympathy with the needs of individual 
freedom ; conventional in their acceptance of cer- 
tain established canons of educational orthodoxy ; 

— 7 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

and erroneous in some of their practical applications 
of the theory of general culture. But German 
educational opinion, whatever its fallacies and 
defects, is an expert opinion. It is based upon ten 
decades oi administrative experience. It is en- 
trenched in social custom. It has behind it the 
power of a vast machine and the prestige of great 
achievement. It is sharply divided upon some 
fundamental issues. But, as in German pohtics, 
so in German education, the established order still 
resists attack. Entrenched habits of mind, and 
the presuppositions upon which those habits are 
based, defy at present the onslaught of their critics. 
The supporters of the existing regime are on the 
whole a solid block. The critics either accept the 
administrative principles of the present system and 
merely wish to give an opposite colour to its poli- 
tical applications, or are forced into extreme theor- 
etical positions which provoke doubt or excite alarm. 
In German discussions about education during the 
last three years we see reflected the political strug- 
gle between the Socialists and the established social 
regime. Milder Liberal opinion sways one way or 
the other. To such opinion the Junker is repug- 
nant ; the violent Socialist frightens it. Between 
these two extremes. Liberalism stands disconsolate. 
It longs for reform in existing educational arrange- 
ments. But it is puzzled to know what reforms 
are possible. It dares not be bold, and remains 
discontented. 

~ 8 ~ 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

The power of organized education is more gener- 
ally recognized in Germany than in England. Or 
rather it has been more effectively harnessed by 
the State. I doubt whether in the interests of 
freedom this has been good for Germany or the 
world. But German education, as organized b}^ 
governments, has been one of the most powerful 
auxiliaries of the German Empire. And it has 
served the purpose of the existing economic regime. 
So powerful is it, that the older school of Socialists 
wish to employ it in the interests of coUectivist 
Democracy. It is like an armed force which could 
conceivably be used against its present masters. 
But the younger Radicals see that a regime of 
political freedom will call for a thorough-going 
revision of the teaching-methods and school-organ- 
ization which are now dominant in the German 
system of education. On what lines is that revision 
to proceed ? What is it in German education that 
calls most urgently for drastic reform ? These 
are the questions which harass the mind of the 
younger school of German Radicals and Socialists. 
America (and, in a less degree, England) point the 
way to an answer. But American and English 
institutions are not popular in Germany at the 
present time. 

II 

Monsieur Friedel writes with knowledge and viva- 
city. He has penetration of mind and a iiair for 

— 9 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

detecting the political ambitions of the Pan- 
germanists. As director of the Musee Pedagogique 
in Paris, he has had access to the documents of the 
case. He has made good use of them. His book 
tells us much that we English readers have had no 
opportunity of learning. 

HI 

Perhaps it will not be thought out of place for 
me to attempt a short sketch of the situation. 

In Germany, education is by law the business of 
each of the twenty-five States (large and small) 
which compose the Empire. There is no central 
office in Berlin which controls all German education. 
No one living can give you all the statistics of all 
the German schools. And, in the educational sys- 
tems of the various States there are certain differ- 
ences of organization, nomenclature, tradition and 
tone. It is a patchwork — this German education ; 
but at the same time a patchwork well sewn to- 
gether, and serviceable to the Empire as a whole. 
This has come about through the operation of cer- 
tain forces which make for unity. For example, 
the much-valued and socially influential privilege 
of " one year service as a volunteer " is attached by 
the military authorities to approved higher secondary 
schools throughout the German Empire. Again, 
the Imperial Law of Industry of 1891 has encouraged 
the establishment of compulsory continuation 
schools. The Universities in German-speaking lands 

— 10 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

are an intellectual commonwealth with a free- 
masonry of mutual understanding. The powerful 
associations of teachers are, many of them, Empire- 
wide. And there is a learned and authoritative 
educational Press. Therefore it is just to speak 
of the German system of education, although ad- 
ministratively it is twenty-five systems, not one. 

To a British observer, four things are character- 
istic of this German system. First, in Prussia espe- 
cially, there is a deep and significantly purposed social 
cleft between the elementary school and higher 
education. Second, higher education has been 
made the vogue among the middle classes by the 
military privileges attached to a select category of 
schools. Policy, good sense, snobbishness, valuable 
scientific interests are all mixed up in the working 
of this system. Third, the Universities are in a 
high degree under the direct influence of the govern- 
ments. In subtle ways, " the pulpits are tuned." 
What, with a smile of double entendre, Mr. Gerard 
calls " the Rat System " is not inefficacious with 
the climbing type of don. Fourth, German edu- 
cation has been cleverly and zealously adjusted 
to the needs of modern industrialism and to the 
policies of modern commerce. 

Now, what has been the effect of the war upon 
the opinions and hopes of the myriad men who 
count in German education ? How have their 
ideas, their loyalties, their political convictions, 
re-acted to the emotions of the war ? Much of 

— II — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

what has happened with us has happened in Ger- 
many also. To them, as to us, the war has made a 
violent national appeal. The Universities and the 
schools have answered to the call. The young 
men have been heroes. The older men have been 
deeply stirred. The institutions have risen to the 
emergency. Neither in Germany nor in Great 
Britain will it ever be forgotten how well the schools 
and Universities served their country in the great war. 
Mixed up with this, there has been a certain 
amount of super-heated patriotism. Some people 
have been silly, and over-eager to use the schools 
for " patriotic " purposes. In Germany, a great 
many enthusiastic citizens want schoolboys to 
have their minds full of soldiering. They incite 
the teachers (some of the teachers hardly need 
incitement) to paint the Entente Devil blacker 
still, and to invoke the " old German God " as if he 
were the wealthy but half-retired senior partner 
whose backing was needed by the firm at a tight 
corner in a speculative (but, if it only succeeds, 
gorgeously remunerative) enterprise. There is 
alarm in Germany, as in Great Britain, at the im- 
morality, indiscipline and pertness of children, 
whose fathers are at the front and whose wages are 
beyond all precedent high. Women are being 
drafted into the school service in place of men at 
the war. This in Germany is more of a revolu- 
tionary change than with us. Again, eager patriots 
demand that the children's history lessons .should 

— 12 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

be coloured by propaganda. According to some 
purists, the French language, literature and art 
should henceforward be taboo. Little Germans are 
to be germanized further still by all the arts of the 
curriculum. x\nd German policy is to be pushed, 
especially at Pera and in Latin South America, by 
subsidized schools and by pertinacious educational 
preparation. In less grotesque forms we hear the 
same kind of thing here. Education is a great power. 
If you can canalize it, you can use it hydraulically 
for public works. Science, if organized along with 
education, is a big lever in State policy. For this 
reason, since the war began, the German Univer- 
sities have been drawn into closer association with 
the Technical High Schools. For more than a cen- 
tury, German education has been patriotic. For 
the last twenty years it has been prone to Chau- 
vinism. During the war, it has displayed on its 
good side a very noble patriotism ; on its vulgar 
side, a turgid and self-revealing ambition. 

But no one hates the snobbish and pedantic 
sides of German education more than do certain 
Germans. And these men also have talked during 
the war. With us, the great Public Schools are 
not so popular as they were four years ago. Their 
failings have been found out. We admire and love 
them for their good qualities, but realize vividly 
their comic shortcomings and complacencies. Still 
fiercer than among ourselves has been the attack 
upon the great Public Schools of Germany. The 

— 13 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

Gymnasien (ironically so called) have an illustrious 
history. But in many respects they are whited 
sepulchres. Venomous are the lips which have 
spat on them since the war. The German is proud, 
inordinately proud, of his educational system. But 
he often has little love for his old school. He remem- 
bers the stiff pedantry of some of his schoolmasters : 
he shudders at the memory of his anxiety about 
examinations : he despises the pretentious dullness 
of some of the teaching. He is a heretic, out 
against an obsolete orthodoxy, which is loaded with 
privileges and hung about the neck with public 
honours. Wisely or unwisely, generally unwisely, 
he clamours for reform in his public schools. He 
knows that things are wrong, but has little idea how 
to put them right. He is hypnotized by educational 
presuppositions, now superannuated. He cannot 
think himself free from the ideas which still govern 
the methods of instruction in German higher schools 
or their mechanical tradition of Allgemeine Bildung. 
But he hates the spirit of the great German Public 
Schools, and savagely criticizes them. Nothing, 
so far, has come from these onslaughts. They do 
not touch the central point of weakness. The 
citadels hold out. And the Governments smile, 
make unreal concessions, and keep things as they 
are. The attack on the great Public Schools is one 
of the chief results of war-time excitement in Ger- 
many. But the attack, so far, has been futile, 
though alarming. 

— 14 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

Much more important is another wave of public 
opinion in Germany about educational affairs. The 
sacred hierarchy of the schools is threatened. The 
social privilege of higher secondary education has 
become more and more unpalatable to the masses 
of the people. They groan under the harrow of 
snobbishness and feel themselves put at a disadvan- 
tage for hfe by the educational administration of 
the State. The German workman demands thor- 
oughgoing educational reform. He wants more 
bridges over the gulf which divides the secondary 
from the elementary school. More than this, he 
wants the elementary school to be the chief concern 
of the Government and the secondary school to 
grow out of it as a higher annexe. He demands 
what he calls the Einheits-Schule. He has been 
brought up to believe that schools are all-powerful, 
and he therefore assumes that, if he can get equality 
in the schools, he will also get equality in every 
stage of adult Hfe. 

His dream is an illusion. Yet he is right in hating 
the present temper of German school administration. 
But his schemes of reform are fantastic. He asks 
for impossible things. And therefore his demands 
are smiled down by the governments and, as the 
Americans say, cut no ice. Nevertheless they are 
^a portent. If Germany has a political revolution, 
there will be a revolution in German education. 
The " high-brows " and the " beat possidentes " 
will have to make terms with what Mr. Wells calls 

— 15 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

^' the common unhampered man." x\nd in those 
•days, if they come, Germany will turn eagerly for 
educational precedents — to the United States of 
America. 

In the meantime, however, the established author- 
ity of German education (especially in Prussia) 
stands unshaken. Its garrison feels nervous, 
but holds the gate. And, as a strategical plan, 
some powerful men in the Prussian Government 
Offices apparently design a centralization of all the 
educational controls in Germany. This means that 
these Prussians want to dominate the Empire and 
to hold its political fortunes in their hand. There 
will be resistance to such ambitions. Therefore 
those ambitions are for the moment skilfully veiled 
and are pushed rather by intrigue than by open 
argument. Whether they are to be realized or 
not depends upon the issue of the war. 

M. E. SADLER. 

Leeds, 

October, 1917. 



16 — 



PREFACE 

HARDLY had the war broken out before the 
Germans set to work to organize the fruits 
of victory. For no one in Germany doubted it would 
be otherwise than it had been in 1866 and 1870. 
They were ready : their enemies were not. 

From time to time, it is true, German thought 
conjured up the terrible consequences of a Euro- 
pean war : but in order that others might be terri- 
fied. Germany herself did not give any real con- 
sideration to the matter. She had become used 
to regard war as " a necessary evil " — to see in it 
" a test sent from Heaven." The citizen — who 
sunned himself in the slow but sure progress of 
peace — had the sayings he had paraphrased at 
school brought to his mind : — " si vis pacem para 
bellum " : " Der Krieg ist ein grosser Lehrmeister" 
(War teaches great lessons, etc., etc.). 

The officers and the recruits were told that " by 
making war short and brutal they would render it 
human." They in their turn got the civihans to 
accept this point of view. Such then was the 
German belief in 1914. 

— 17 — B 



PREFACE 

It is surprising to find the propagandists of the 
East of the Rhine, relying on the inadequate poh- 
tical education of the German people, asserting 
that Germany did not loose the dogs of war on 
Europe. To-day the whole world judges differ- 
ently. It is true that as far as national politics 
are concerned the Germans have remained the most 
uninformed, and it is admitted — at present — that 
they are the least advanced as regards world poli- 
tics. This poHtical immaturity is for the world at 
large one of the most irrefutable proofs of their 
culpability. 

The imperiahsm of Bismarck ; and the ambi- 
tions of " Kultur " had led the Germans into a cul- 
de-sac. Surrounded by nations in which the rela- 
tions between the individual and the State, and the 
mutual relationship between the different peoples, 
followed the natural evolutions of right and liberty, 
they were unable to escape, save by the sanguinary 
diversion of a war. 

As in 1866 and 1870 they meant to succeed, and 
hoped to find in a cataclysm thus brought about, 
the solution of the problems arising from their 
political system, but made impossible of solution 
by the realities of the systems of all their neighbours. 
Here we have the reason for their dread of being 
surrounded. 

Who created this state of thought ? Who retarded 
their political education ? 

Germany is far from being a country of fools. 

— 18 — 



PREFACE 

To blame the Government — the poHtical parties — ■ 
the military caste — would absolve the people. This 
distinction has however been made : the courageous 
stand made by certain representatives of the people, 
and the peaceful wishes of various individuals, have 
been set against the now concihatory — now brutal — 
attitude of the rulers. Any such attempt only 
shows a misconception of the discipline which 
pedagogues — following the dictates of the State — 
their head — have thrust on the entire nation. 

The pedagogues were the first to bring to Hght the 
lessons of this " great master " — war. Belgium 
had just been atrociously crushed, when the most 
authoritative of them began to develop in the big 
" Dailies " their projects for the " school of to- 
morrow " (ecole de demain) " of the doctrine of the 
new Germany of military education of the young," 
etc., etc., and to expound the principles of the " peda- 
gogy of the future." Immediately a general and 
passionate controversy began. 

It is not the result of chance. It is most illumin- 
ating that the Higher Command and the Censor 
allowed this controversy to continue. In spite of 
the differences of their systems, the authors of 
these pedagogical projects all aimed at the strength- 
ening of the national power. The reforms suggested, 
however, are not in any way new, far from it. 
Formerly in time of peace, parliamentary opposi- 
tion and the political balance of the government 
had postponed them : now, the experiences of the 

— 19 — 



PREFACE 

war, and the national aspirations for the future, 
gave them an added reality, which was emphasized 
by their contradictions and even by their excesses. 
At a moment when the government needed to up- 
lift the spirit of the nation, discussions on the might 
of Germany by the education of the rising genera- 
tion, were truly welcome. 

It was not entirely the desire to profit by the 
patriotic enthusiasm and the truce between the 
political parties, that caused the pedagogues to 
act with such ardour in the introduction of reforms 
which had been formerly set on one side. They 
were but continuing their official work. Had they 
not been told times without number that the vic- 
tories of 1866 and of 1870 were the result of their 
teaching ? Now they were told that it was neces- 
sary to conquer once again, in order to save the 
threatened " Kultur," that " Kultur " which they 
had extolled and built up. It was their natural 
duty to exploit the successes of the war ; and to 
point their lessons. The eagerness of the peda- 
gogues to seize pubhc opinion from the first days of 
the war, lies in their wish and in their duty to bring 
the mentality of the people to the concert pitch of 
Berlin. It was they who brought about the mental 
outlook which stupefied the world. Thanks to 
their work the German people were unable to reach 
the necessary pohtical maturity to assure for them- 
selves, otherwise than by war, an internal and 
external development, in accordance with the 

— 20 — 



PREFACE 

general principles of the civilization of our days. 

The following chapters set forth the chief aims 
of this " German war pedagogy." In writing them 
we have not hesitated to make use of notes made, 
since the war, from the chief German newspapers. 
The Press is, we admit, an unsatisfactory authority, 
especially at present, but the articles used are signed 
by names well known in the world of education. 
Formerly the above quoted educational writers 
and the high officials expounded their theories 
in documentary brochures and in imposing tomes : 
now they try to reach the pubhc at large by short 
essays and concise judgments. Their Press cam- 
paign is, however, no less sincere than was their 
official teaching. 

In the compilation of this work anonymous ar- 
ticles have only been made use of when they have 
appeared in controlled periodicals or papers reputed 
to express official opinion. On the other hand, 
the extreme papers of all opinions have been dis- 
regarded. 

We trust that the war may teach us great les- 
sons. The German pedagogy, as far back as 
August 1914, displayed itself in its true colours. 
It has thrown off its idealistic and Humanitar- 
ian character and become frankly Rationalist and 
Utilitarian. 

Let us bear this in mind. 



21 — 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Introduction. By Professor Sadler. 

C.B., Vice-Chancellor of Leeds University . . 7 

Preface. By the Author . . . . -17 

CHAPTER I 

The Effect of War on the Centralization of 

German Education ..... 25 

CHAPTER II 
Physical Education and Military Preparation . 38 

CHAPTER III 
Moral and Civic Education .... 69 

CHAPTER IV 

The " EiNHEiTsscHULE " . . . . .90 

CHAPTER V 

The War and Humanistic Studies . . . 120 

CHAPTER VI 
The Political Role of the Universities . .169 

CHAPTER VII 
The War and the German Woman . . .214 

CHAPTER VIII 
The German Scholastic Propaganda in Foreign 

Countries before and during the War . 235 



— 23 



CHAPTER I 

The Effect of War on the Centralization of 
German Education 

TO create an empire, Bismarck falsified the 
Ems dispatch. He knew that a war with 
the " hereditary enemy " would enable him to 
group partisans of individual liberty in Germany 
around the Prussian standard. Victory achieved, 
this same individuality forced him to stop short at 
the principle of federation in the formation of the 
empire. All his later activity was aimed at imbu- 
ing this organization with a single and proudly 
national spirit {deutscher Reichsgedanke) and at 
consolidating it by a close centralization under the 
hegemony of Prussia. Being convinced that " this 
could not be brought about without a fresh war," 
and whilst waiting for the opportune moment, he 
took pains to prepare the framework of the proposed 

unification. 

* ♦ ♦ 

To-day, from a military point of view, Germany is 
a united empire. The King of Prussia, as Emperor, 
is its supreme and absolute head. Prussian dis- 
cipline reigns throughout. The individuality of 

— 25 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

the various confederate states is reduced to certain 
differences as regards uniform, which disappear in 
time of war ; and to certain unimportant details. 
It appears, however, that the recruits from the 
southern states on entering the barracks had not 
the same knowledge, the same keenness of intel- 
lect, the same standard of moral and physical 
preparation as the Prussians. 

The Imperial General Staff had, therefore, pre- 
pared, in case of war, for the immediate mobiliza- 
tion of the youth of Germany with a view to a 
uniform military training (see Chapter II). This 
was ordered in August, 191 4. It is the allurement 
of an " imperial " institution which it is suggested 
to continue after th., war. 

From a legal point of view the empire has tended 
towards an imperial legislation common to all the 
states of the confederation. The application of 
the state of siege and of the war measures, ordered 
by Berlin, at the beginning of the war seem to have 
produced different results in the various German 
states. 

Is one to believe that the people of Saxony or 
of Bavaria, foi example, have not yet learnt to 
behave towards the Prussianizing imperial authority 
with the same docility as the inhabitants of the 
Mark of Brandenbourg, and that their " imperial 
education " is incomplete ? In any case it is a fact 
that the Generals commanding districts have issued 
police orders which the zealots at Berlin would like 

— 26 — 



AS A M^AR NURSERY 

to see transformed into permanent imperial statutes 
(see Chapter III). 

From a constitutional and political point of view, 
Bismarck and the imperialists experienced serious 
disappointments. The individualist groups had 
disappeared, worn out by vain protests : but power- 
ful political parties had been formed, which did not 
delay in making the Government feel their power, 
at one moment by an indiscreet pressure, at 
another by the violence of their opposition. 

At the same time the economic impetus of the 
country accentuated the antagonism between the 
masters and the working classes. Whilst the more 
frequent contact with foreign countries and the 
growing ease produced, in the middle classes, a 
state of mind little in keeping with the discipline 
which the Prussian doctrine exacted, a foundation 
of democratic ideas remained in the German mind, 
especially in the centre and the south, to which 
the success of individual effort in commerce and 
industry and the great diffusion of instruction 
were capable of giving new power. How could 
this be prevented ? How could a permanent effect 
be given to the lessons of the war for the promotion 
of the moral union of the State and of the nation ? 

Bismarck and his followers entrusted the task 
of subjecting the German states to the central 
empire, to State education, which had been devel- 
oped elsewhere for the good of the principles of 
democratic freedom. This union is completed, 

— 27 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

according to their wish, in their higher education. 
The Universities and the High Schools are the 
natural allies of the Government at Berlin (see 
Chapter V). Secondary Education is regarded more 
than ever as the school of the elite. It prepares for 
the Universities and professions, not only for the 
children of the upper classes but also for the pick 
of the middle class whom it thus attracts towards 
positions of government. The pedagogic contro- 
versy between a classical and modern curriculum 
has always had a political background. William 
1 1 personally intervened at the conferences of 1890 
and igoo, so that a uniformly German, patriotic 
and national character should be given to this 
teaching. It was therefore natural that the Prus- 
sian elementary teachers should follow this ex- 
ample (see Chapter IV). 

As far back as 1908 the Association of German 
teachers {Deutscher Lehrerverein) , a powerful pan- 
German society, agitated for " imperial educational 
legislation." Quite recently a secondary school- 
master dared write in an educational journal, that 
" the decentralization of the German educational 
organization, with all its contrasts and all its strik- 
ing contradictions, really surpassed the justifiable 
and boasted individuality of the confederate 
States." 

It is astonishing to see the obstinacy of Prussia 
in not being able to recognize the superiority of the 
elementary schools in Saxony or in the Southern 

— 28 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

States. She has been forced to model her schools, 
as regards many details of organization, on those 
of the neighbouring states, but she has never allowed 
an occasion to pass of urging them towards a patri- 
otic outlook and of commending to them the morale 
of her own system. Indeed the " contrasts and con- 
tradictions " come from the fact that everywhere 
elementary education has a democratic character, 
which it has not in Prussia. In order that this may 
be forgotten the Government at Berlin has shown an 
untiring solicitude for the teacher. No portion 
of the most lavish praises of the patriotic merits 
of the elementary teacher has ever been delivered 
in the Prussian House without the teachers reaping 
appreciable social advantages. 

These have been repeated on other platforms in 
the empire, and have been repeated again and 
again in the papers. What has been the result ? 

As a result the German elementary teacher has 
done his best to be worthy of this praise.^ 

Were the authorities in Berlin convinced that 
the Imperial Education met every contingency ? 

It was unnecessary to make the University circles 

and the middle classes accept the idea of war. 

Among the masses of the people the expedient of 

^ Taking a phrase, invented by whom and under what 
circumstances we know not, Rob. Kahn states " that the 
German elementary teacher leads the German people " 
[Der deutsche Schulnieister marschiert auch heute an unseres 
VolkesSpitze.) Frankfurter Zeitung, ]une 12, igi^. Volks- 
bildung und Wehrhaftigkeit, by Dr. Rob. Kahn. 

— 29 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

the Fatherland basely attacked, strengthened by 
the strongly imposed political truce, in other 
countries brought about by the mutual consent of 
the parties, recalls too vividly the methods of the 
Iron Chancellor for one not to see in it a precaution 
added, to make doubly sure, to the imperialistic 
propaganda in popular centres. 

War, once again, has " united " the Germans to 
themselves. And so that, this time, the union 
should be permanent, the promoters of the central 
empire have immediately re-commenced the cam- 
paign for an imperial organization of every grade of 

public instruction. 

* * * 

From the beginning of hostilities the education 
authorities in all the German states have asked the 
teachers to bring home to their scholars, in the 
fullest way possible, the lessons of the war : it 
appeared essential to them to interest the children 
" in the great events of which they are the uncon- 
scious witnesses." 

In a few months it was possible to introduce 
this scholastic propaganda to the public in the 
capital. On March 21, 1915, the Prussian Minister 
of Education inaugurated' at Berlin " the Central 
Institute — Emperor William II — for education and 
teaching." ^ A kind of pedagogical library, the 

1 Vide, amongst others, Frankfurter Zeitung, April 24, 
1 915: Berliner Tageblatt, March 20, 1915. Leipzig followed 
this example in June. Berliner Tageblatt, June 15, 1915. 

— 30 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

chief idea of which being to conserve whilst mak- 
ing them accessible, the pedagogical collection 
brought together at great cost in 1910 for the 
Brussels Exhibition. As a beginning the new In- 
stitute organized a special exhibition " The School 
and the War." There one could see, so we are 
told, the children's compositions on the glorious 
episodes of the war, topographical drawings and 
sketches relative to battles, models of war machines, 
— girls' hand work to be sent to the soldiers : — 
graphs showing the position of the schools with 
regard to the works of war — letters from school 
children to the " men in grey " and the answers 
from the Front, and even collections of patriotic 
war poetry composed by the school children. This 
living picture of the participation of the little world 
of school in the realities of the war was frequently 
commented upon by the experts in their lectures ^ 
and stress was laid on the means and methods of 
teaching which it suggests. 

This Institute is as yet only a Prussian creation, 
but seeing that it centralizes all that which refers 
to the German school, even outside the imperial 
frontiers, and in that it especially aims at point- 
ing out the lessons of the war for the whole German 
nation, it follows that it will become an imperial 
organization. 

This Institute is expected to expand by force of 

^ It will be necessary on another page to quote one or 
two of these lectures. 

— 3T — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

circumstance from a centre of study and of in- 
formation for the use of the schools of all the Ger- 
man states into a central Administration (Reichs- 
schulbehorde) to which all general questions, in 
which uniformity is desired, would be referred, 
such as the professional preparation of the teacher, 
the length of term and of vacation, the scope of 
the curriculum, the fixing of the school-leaving age, 
etc., etc. It seems as if it would end in overthrow- 
ing the scholastic autonomy of the confederate 
states.^ 

Soon after the opening of the Central Pedagogical 
Institute a German Committee for education and 
instruction was formed. The principal pedagogical 
societies and such renowned educational experts 
as Rein, Wychgram, etc., and the high administrat- 
ive officials immediately became members. This 
committee proposed to study the best way of re- 
solving the various pedagogical problems which the 
war had created or had brought under discussion. 
The following subjects appeared in its programme : 
unification in a single homogeneous organization 
of all the organizations destined to educate youth, 
from the nursery and infant schools to the Univer- 
sities and the army : the establishment of a school 
purely German in character {Deutsche Grundschule) : 
the rational selection of the chosen scholars to go 
on to the Secondary Schools : the development of 

^ Die Notwendigkeit einer Reich sschulbehorde, by the 
Lehrer Menzel, [Vossische Zeitung). 

— 32 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

German influence in foreign countries : the revision 
of the privileges granted to various educational 
estabhshments : the physical and military educa- 
tion of school children and adults : the education 
of girls, including " the year of State military train- 
ing for women," etc.^ 

The German Committee owes its existence to a 
secondary schoolmaster. It would have been as- 
tonishing if a member of high education had not 
meddled with a question which was more particu- 
larly of interest to elementary education. It was 
a future University professor, Privatdocent Dr. 
Max Brahn of Leipzig, who undertook its forma- 
tion. 2 

Dr. Brahn also considered that it was time to 
stop the multiplicity of German scholastic organiza- 
tions resulting from the fact that each confederate 
state directs its education according to its own ideas. 

When the Empire was formed, no one realised 
the importance which a uniform education of the 
rising generations might have for the German 
imperial idea. The Constitution of 1871 makes 
no provision for this question. The initiative of 
William II in summoning the educationalists of the 
whole empire to a series of meetings at Berlin, to 
discuss the various questions affecting secondary 
education forms a precedent. 

^ Vossische Zeituvg, January 23, 1916 — morning edition. 
2 Berliner Tagehlatt, January 16, 1916 — second supple- 
ment. 

— 33 — o 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

Has not Prussia often pointed the way to educa- 
tional reforms to the confederate states ? Apart 
from a small grant ^ made to the Foreign Office to 
look after German schools in foreign lands, no 
imperial organization exists to bring the schools in 
the various parts of Germany into close union. 
There are however in education certain methods 
and certain subjects which affect the well-being of 
the whole nation, and ought, therefore, to be the 
same in the north and south as in the east and 
west. Physical education, the aim of which is 
military aptitude ; civil and moral instruction, 
which should aim at absolute loyalty towards the 
"Fatherland;" the teaching of the language, of 
the history and the geography of the nation should 
not differ in any part of the empire. The same thing 
applies to other subjects in the curriculum. 

The moment has arrived. Dr. Brahn believes, 
to cement the union formed by the war and to 
put an end to the inconveniences which too much 
individuality has caused in peace time. According 
to his idea " an imperial conference " [Reichsschul- 
conferenz) is necessary. Men of every profession 
ought now to be asked to attend, equally with 
educationalists, in order that education may be 
finally organized in conformity with the practical 
and national exigences of the present and of the 
future. The Confederate States would be left free 
to arrange the details. In order to provide for 
1 A sum, of 6,500 marks appears in the Budget. 
- 34 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

the continuity of the decisions of this conference, 
a permanent and central organization of pubHc 
instruction — something Hke an under secretaryship 
of State — would be established at Berlin to decide 
and arrange for the application of the general and 
guiding principles of a uniform education of the 
German youth with a view to the complete unity 
of the empire."^ 

<( 4i 4( 

This, then, in short, is the ruling political idea 
underlying the pedagogy of the German war. It 
will be seen as the base of each of the controversies 
which are summarized in the succeeding chapters. 
Just as some honest pedagogues in Germany, we 
have been surprised to see an educational movement 
start with such bitterness at a moment when the 
country was entering into an armed struggle, which 
was sure to be formidable. This is, however, no 
movement towards scholastic restoration and re- 
organization such as has taken place in Germany 
and elsewhere as the result of violent political 
changes, but a deep-laid political campaign disguised 
as education. This accounts for its bursting forth, 
one might say, automatically, on the declaration of 
war.. The trial found her united. 

The nation was led to believe that it was defending 
its existence against its jealous and implacable 
enemies. Political discord died. This union was 

^ Berliner TagehlaU, January i6, 1916 ; vide also chapter 
iv. the proposals for the Eiuheits- or Grvnchchule. 

— 35 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

to live for ever, welded together by " the thought 
of Empire." All the forces of the nation henceforth 
should be concentrated on this thought. The Ger- 
man nation must be in a position to reap all the 
fruits of victory. It was therefore necessary that 
a uniform education of all her citizens should pro- 
cure immediately the necessary physical, moral and 
intellectual force. It is a logical postulate, though 
hard to realize, of their internal policy.^ The rul- 
ing party had judged it wdse to start a movement 
of this kind in close connexion with politics and 
with the aims of the war. It was not therefore 
a question of an education, broadly speaking 
humanistic, nor of a purely national education, such 
as the German thinkers of the beginning of the 
twentieth century desired, but of a political and 
nationalist education in accordance with the new 
German precepts, which are known under the name 
of " Kultur." 

The pedagogy of the German war spreads beyond 
the domain of pedagogy proper. It threatens in- 
deed to pass beyond the confines of German inter- 
nal politics. The consequences of possible peda- 

1 At the Bavarian Diet (59th sitting of the Commission 
on the Budget, February i, 1916) a speaker violently 
attacked the idea of a Reichsschulamt (an imperial office of 
pubhc education). The Minister of Education replied that 
this idea had only occasionally appeared in the Press ; 
that the Imperial Government had not taken the initiative 
in this matter and that moreover such a centralization was 
not in accord with the constitution of the empire, 

- 36 ..- 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

gogical shufflings and " the new Germany " [Neu- 
deutschland) which will result, should not be passed 
over without comment. It is the winning hand of 
the " time after the war " which is being prepared 
on the other side of the North Sea. 

Let us follow it closely. Even now it is possible 
to distinguish some of the principles of this " war 
pedagogy " and to form an idea of what the school 
of thought of the " Germany of to-morrow " will 
be like, even though it may not be realized as com- 
pletely as the majority of Germans of to-day would 
wish. 






THE GERMAN SCHOOL 



CHAPTER II 
Physical Education and Military Preparation 

IT has been stated that the schoohiiaster won our 
battles. Knowledge alone, however, does not 
raise mankind to the moral height where he is 
ready to sacrifice his life for an idea, for duty done, 
for the honour of his country. The whole education 
of the soldier must be added. It is not the school- 
master, but rather the State, which has gained our 
battles, the State, which for sixty years has urged the 
education of the nation towards physical strength 
and moral sanity : towards patriotism and viril- 
ity. Field-Marshal Moltke unfolded this pro- 
gramme of military education before the Reichs- 
tag in 1874, for the benefit of the representatives 
of the confederate states, whom the skill of Bis- 
marck had grouped around the Hohenzollern eagle 
in 1870, and whom it was now necessary to urge 
forward as a result of the new imperial realizations 
based on Prussian ideals. 

Allusion to the middle ages, when the founder of 
German physical culture (Turnvater), Fr. L. Jahn, 
advocated physical education with the avowed aim 

-38- 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

of preparing the country for the merciless struggle 
against the " hereditary enemy," sufficiently ex- 
plains the " idea " for which the rising generation 
of the empire should be ready to sacrifice themselves 
without a murmur. At the time of the wars with 
Napoleon the Universities had put themselves at 
the head of the movement. From that time they 
have not ceased advertising, in a loud and military 
manner, physical valour for the benefit of the 
" national German idea " {Deutscher National- 
gedanke). 

The State, as early as 1842, had added " gymnas- 
tics " to the curriculum of the Secondary Schools 
and to that of the primary schools in 1862. Many 
times since then have the methods of school work 
been the object of pedagogical discussion and reform. 
The followers of Moltke were able to refrain from 
openly interfering, as the whole German education 
was evolving, according to their wish, towards 
the national and military ideal. ^ 



^ The figures given by the Prussian Minister of Education 
at the Budget Committee on February 6, 1916, are striking. 
Of 51,018 masters mobihzed, more than 6,000 have fallen : 
more than one-fifth of the students of the training col- 
leges, who joined up as volunteers, have also been killed. 

At the meeting of March 16, 1916, the Minister stated 
that out of the 15,700 fully quahfied Prussian Secondary 
School teachers 7,000 were with the colours. Die Lehrer- 
Kollegien im Krieg, by Professor P. Hildehrsindt {Vossische 
Zeitung, of December 5, 1915, fifth edition) informs us 
that one of the public schools in Berhn hadJost eighteen 

— 39 ~ 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

William II, more talkative, defined it more 
clearly each time he had the occasion to speak to 
educationists. Physical culture was practised for 
itself, for the betterment of the race, for the good 
of public health, but its military character was 
retained. 

The Education Authorities, who asked for no- 
thing else, were urged not to sacrifice physical 
exercises to useless studies ; to strengthen their 
obligatory character, to endow a sufficient number 
of special institutions, so that every elementary 

out of thirty-three teachers : in others one-third were 
mobihzed. A National Liberal member suggested that, if 
the scholars of the fifth form were called up they would 
" form nearly an army corps " [Kolnische Zeitung, March 
17, 1 916). The Socialist member — Hoffmann — spoke 
of 20,000 youths, many amongst them being in the 
fourth form, fifteen years old : the Higher Command was 
obliged to stop this stream of recruits who joined up " in 
der Aufpeitschung der Leidenschaften in der ersten Zeit, imd 
urn vom Schulzwang loszukommen. Man ruhmt sich noch, dass 
die Lehrer mit halber List sie dazu bekommen haben " (In 
the excitement of the first days, and in order to evade the 
obligatory attendance at school. It is also stated with 
pride that the teachers half forced them to do so by ruse.) 
{Vorwdrts, March 18, first edition.) 

Finally in the summer of 1915, 81 per cent, of the stu- 
dents of the Universities, Technical High Schools, etc., were 
in the army or in the auxiliary services ; and in the mnter 
1 915-16 as many as 84 per cent. : e.g. more than four 
fifths or, calculated according to the attendance of the 
last term in peace time, about 56,000 men. This same 
winter only 10,000 youths of German birth regularly 
attended the courses [Tdgliche Rundschau, June 5, 1916). 

„ 40 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

and secondary teacher could become an expert 
instructor of physical culture.^ 

It is interesting to call to mind the sarcastic and 
threatening criticism which was levelled at France 
from the other side of the Rhine with regard to her 
scholars' battalions, to the patriotic character of 
her gymnastic societies (as for example the '' Alsa- 
cienne-Lorraine) : and to the teaching of shooting 
in her elementary schools. The Germans to-day 
quote the French societies for military preparation, 
in order to accuse her of " militarism," and of a 
" spirit of revenge," but in reality to bolster up 
their own plans with the precedent of French 
example. 2 

When the German General Staff — in August, 
1914 — mobihzed the youth of the country, it be- 
came clear that Moltke's speech had not been 
delivered in Parliament simply for oratorical effect. 
The Minister of War included in his preparations 
for the conflict physical education as a basis of 

^ It is a known fact that many Secondary Schoolmasters 
[Oberlehrer) add " gymnastics " to the faciiUas docendi of 
Greek, Latin and modern languages, etc. Every effort 
has been made to make this " exception " the rule, and to 
make " gymnastics " one of the main subjects {Haupfach) 
so that the teaching of gymnastics in the schools should 
only be done by the Oberlehrer. Vacation training courses 
have been organized for teachers in general, and there is 
in Berlin a most elaborately equipped institute for the 
training of teachers for this special instruction. 

■^ Tdgliche Rundschau, January, 1916 (evening edi- 
tion). 

— 41 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

military efficiency. This formed a part of the pre- 
parations made by him in view of the expected 
struggle. At the same time the expression " mili- 
tary education " {Militarische Jugenderziehung : 
Erziehung zur Wehrhaftigkeit, etc.) appeared in the 
leading papers. The Censor permitted the discus- 
sion on this controversial subject to burst again 
into flame, because he was certain that the national 
feeling would override the scruples of the idealistic 
pedagogues. Public opinion had indeed also been 
prepared outside educational circles. 

The numerous gymnastic societies (Turnvereine) 
had become united after 1870 into a vast and power- 
ful organization, [Turner schaft) whose aims became 
quickly merged in proud nationalism and the ag- 
gressive display of pan-Germanism. Physical 
training had its place in all political, social or re- 
ligious associations. Equally in sports clubs, pure 
and simple, every effort was made to remove the 
influence of EngUsh models, and to replace them 
with uniform and aims dear to the military mind. 

Finally the military preparation was clearly 
evident in the recently formed clubs of youths and 
children. 

Their titles are descriptive of their aims : the 
Pfadfinder (boy-scouts), the " Jugendsturm " the 
" Jtigendwehr " (of Berlin), the J ungdeutschland, the 
Wehrkraftverein (of Bavaria), etc. In short, the 
military pragmatism, which was officially denied, 
had gained the ascendanc}^ wherever physical exer- 

— 4- ~ 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

cises were carried out and they were indulged in on 
every possible occasion. The nationalism of Bis- 
marck and the militarism of Moltke had prepared 
the nation for the effort which was realized as 
immanent.^ 

On August 14, 19 14, a fortnight after mobiliza- 
tion, William II gave his sanction to a decree of 
his War Minister, countersigned by the Minister 
of the Interior and by the Minister for Education, 
ordering the formation of " companies of youths " 
{Jugendcompagnien, Jungmannen, Jimgmannschaf- 
ten) .2 

Schools, gymnastic societies, sports' clubs, cor- 
porations and municipalities were asked to form 
into companies all the youths of sixteen and even- 
fifteen years old, who were capable of benefiting 
by physical culture and instruction, preparing them 
for military work. One relied on the patriotism 
of the youths to make them enlist, and on that of 
their parents, employers and of the Authorities to 
make them take part in the training. The Minister 
of War, by means of instructions [Richtlinien) 

■*■ Jttngdeufschland, Neudeutschland, Alldeutschland, 
Mitieleuvopa (young Germany, new Germany, pan-Ger- 
manic Central Europe) mark the stages in Germanic dream.s. 
These are the expressions which are to be found on every 
page of the German papers of these latter years. 

^ Every German citizen at seventeen years old is land- 
sturmpflicktig ; i.e. can be mobilized in the territorial 

divisions. 

* 

— 43 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

laid down in what the preparation of the future 
recruits should consist ; training of the body and 
mind ; route marches, reconnaissances, signalling ; 
choice of ground, judging of distances — in short 
all that would prepare a young man to become 
rapidly a soldier fit for a campaign, beginning with 
discipline. The use of arms and special drill were 
not included in this programme but left for the 
barrack square. 

The fact that this mobilization of children was 
ordered by the Emperor, the supreme head of the 
imperial armies, proves that it was to be operative 
in the whole empire. The avowed motive of the 
measure, which was to " facilitate the training in 
the depots of young men who might be shortly 
called to the colours," and its limitation to the 
duration of the war, only deceived those who be- 
lieved in a precaution brought about by ^orce of 
circumstances. In reality the Government at Ber- 
lin had much more far-reaching aims. The com- 
plete and implacable exploitation of victory was 
to create the Germany (Neudeutschland) dreamed 
of by Germanism, a Germany definitely centralized 
under the hegemony of Prussia, in a position to im- 
pose its will. As every political question in Germany 
begins with the school, and ends with the army, 
this war measure of the General Staff was regarded 
by the public as a distinct step towards the unifica- 
tion of public education under imperial control. 
♦ ♦ ♦ 

— 44 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

In Prussia the military preparation of the younger 
members of the community was entrusted to the 
presidents of the provinces, i.e. to the immediate 
representative of the general civil government, 
who had a senior officer specially attached to or- 
ganize and direct these " youths' companies." The 
other German states followed the example of Prus- 
sia. The Emperor created, for Berlin and for 
the mark of Brandenbourg, a " General Commis- 
sariat Department," at whose head he placed an 
infantry general. 

The Ministers of Education and of Commerce 
received instructions to form similar corps in all 
institutions under their jurisdiction ; and to reduce 
lessons in such a way as to allow the pupils enrolled 
in these companies to take an active part in their 
training. In cases where there was not a sufficient 
number of pupils to form a school corps, the boys 
had to join with the youths who had left school 
in the battalions which were to be raised by clubs, 
factories and municipalities. The Civil Authori- 
ties were ordered to help forward the movement 

by every means in their power. 

* ♦ * 

The purport of the first instructional directions 
(Richtlinien) has already been noticed. The minis- 
ter supplemented these, as experience proved the 
necessity, and they have now been codified. As 
the campaign continued the original organizers, 
chiefly retired military men, were called to the 

- 45 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

colours, and their places were taken by benevolent 
civilians, for whose use publishing houses printed 
a kind of catechism embodying the aims and ideas 
of the military authorities. 

The Minister of War had provided for all con- 
tingencies as regards this forced military prepara- 
tion ; implements and maps had been purchased, 
means of transport had been arranged, ^ and policies 
taken out with the insurance companies to cover 
the responsibility of the instructors in case of 
accident, etc., etc. 

At first the idea was greeted with general enthu- 
siasm ; then followed a period of reflection and 
criticism. The parades to be seen at Berlin and 
elsewhere were considered by the general public, 
and even by soldiers, as ridiculous, ^ and the Minister 
of War was obliged to state that he did not want 
people " to play at soldiers." 

As far as the children were concerned the mono- 
tony and fatigue of certain exercises, the courses 
of theoretical instruction and especially the disci- 
pline, calmed their first enthusiasm. Then, as 
the classes were not to be held on Sundays, so as 

^ The instructors have free transport to the manoeuvre 
grounds, and the pupils benefit by reduced fares. The 
Budget Commission of the Prussian Landtag wished to 
extend these free passes equally to directors and to every- 
body helping in the training of the companies. 

2 Die VerausserlicJmng der miliidrischen Jugendpflege. 
(Major Corsep en Ajfgonne) in the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, 
February 7, 1917. 

-46- 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

not to prevent the children from going to church 
the masters and parents considered that the ab- 
sence of the young workmen for one or two after- 
noons a week was upsetting to the work and a heavy 
charge, and, after all, this preparation was not 
obligatory. It had been organized for the duration 
of the war, but the war was going on interminably. 
The cost of living was daily becoming higher, and 
in many cases there was no one but the son to gain 
the wherewithal to live or to cultivate the land. It 
is thanks to the schools that the scheme has never- 
theless taken root. The teaching profession has 
been ordered, since the first days of the war, to 
interest their pupils by every possible means in 
the great events which were taking place. This 
it did so well that the young minds soon regarded 
the " youths ' companies " as a useful adjunct, 
and a movement was set on foot to make the obliga- 
tion and organisation permanent after the war. 

By the middle of 1915 the main lines had been 
fixed and the instructions completed, and the Press 
was called in to enlighten and stimulate public 
opinion. 1 . 

^ The article Jugendcompagnien, by Professor Dr. Walter 
Jesinghaus of Berlin, which appeared in the Berliner Tage- 
blait of June 7, 1915, aimed at stimulating the zeal of one 
section of the community and allaying the fears of another. 
In JanuarjT-, 191 6, the Bavarian Ministers of the Interior, of 
Religion and of War addressed a new circular to the generals 
commanding districts, to the prefects, to the municipali- 
ties and to the representatives of counties and districts 

— 47 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

Proposals were then made by pedagogues to 
include in the curriculum military preparation. 
Such a proposal was open to various criticisms, the 
least being the certain disorder which would be 
caused in the traditional Time Tables. The pro- 
posals, therefore, gave rise to grave apprehension. 
Could the education of the brain be reduced with- 
out hurting the nation's intellectual future ? What 
subjects could be sacrificed ? Would it be possible 
to find teachers capable of giving to this preparation 
as educational an appearance as the military 
authorities desired. Would there not be the inevit- 
able danger, whatever steps were taken to combat 
it, of making the school too military and, as some 
of the advanced politicians thought, the whole 
civil life of the nation. 

Another class of thinker was also to be found in 
military circles : those who did not possess the 
true military spirit : and who made the young 
recruits believe that when they had joined the corps 
they had nothing else to learn with regard to mili- 
tary matters. To them it seemed just as dangerous 
to apply military methods to civil affairs, as it 
was to introduce civil methods into the barracks, 
" as had been done in France." ^ 

thanking them for what they had done for the mihtary 
preparation of the young people and urging them to 
renewed efforts. It seems from this that the success of 
the first year was incomplete [MuncheneY Neueste Nach- 
richten, January 27, 1916, morning edition). 

^ Frankfurter Zeitung, September 19 and 26, 1915 : 

-48- 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

It is impossible to analyse in this work the numer- 
ous articles and pamphlets to which the enrol- 
ment of the youth of the country by the Minister 
of War gave rise.^ 

With a very few exceptions professional or 

educational writers have expressed themselves in 

favour of the ministerial scheme, and the military 

preparation of schoolboys and youths has become 

a reality which future German education will have to 

take into its calculations. 

* * * 

In March, 1916,2 the Prussian Minister of War 

" Militarismus und Jugenderziehung " : " Let us leave these 
stupidities to foreigners, "says this serious paper in the first 
article dealing with organizations imitating army methods. 
The second is a letter sent by a Bavarian colonel at the 
Front. This officer is entirely against giving to the educa- 
tion of the young, in times of peace, any taint of that 
" subhme and sacred military character " which children 
cannot understand. 

1 The chief articles of the educational papers, as well as 
the pamphlets and books, have been analysed in the daily 
papers. In addition to the articles already quoted or to 
be quoted suo loco ; the following summarize the contro- 
versy : Militdrischc Jugendausbildung, by Professor Dr. 
Hildebrandt, in the Vossische Zeitung, March 20, 1915, and 
February 6, 1916 ; Die Schulprogramm im Krieg, in the 
Berliner Tagehlatt of April 28, 1915 ; Sport und Spiel ; 
Die Militdrische Vorbereitung der Jugend, by Councillor 
Suckow of Frankfort on the Oder, Kolnische Zeitung, May 10, 
1 916. Sport und Spiel, ibid., March, 22 1916. 

2 In January, 1916, the Prussian Minister of War had 
summoned to Berlin representatives of the various gymnas- 
tic societies of the five largest confederate states. The 
reason of this conference being to unify the teaching of 

— 49 ~ D 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

invited State officials, educationalists, presidents 
of gymnastic societies, etc., of the various states of 
the empire to a course of instruction. The lectures 
were delivered in the audience chamber of the 
Prussian Diet and the conference lasted for several 
days.^ The ministerial delegates again explained 
the views of their chiefs and laid stress on the suc- 
cess of the scheme. The civil delegates related 
their experiences and put forward their proposals. 
The practical demonstrations out of doors terminated 
the discussions. The chief question was, it appears, 
the obligatory character of the new military pre- 
paration. The State officials who were not certain 
of the general attitude on this point had the satis- 
faction of seeing that opinion was strongly in favour 
of compulsion. 2 
. Debates on this current subject occupied the chief 

German gymnastics, and to make it coincide with that in 
the schools and in the army [Kolnische Zeitung, March 
22, 1916). 

^ All the principal papers gave accounts of the meetings 
and analysed the questions discussed — amongst others the 
supplement of the Vossische Zeitung, March 23, 24, 25. 
Miinchener Neueste Nachrichten seized the occasion to make 
an active propaganda in Bavaria. 

2 The president of the gymnastic council of Berlin, 
Professor Dr. Reinhardt, ventured to ask if it was not pos- 
sible to waive compulsion. Loud cries of " No " answered 
his question. One of the officials from the War Office had 
just enumerated all the disadvantages of a voluntary 
system. The military authorities rely largely on the ele- 
mentary and continuation schools — both of which are com- 
pulsory and hope, therefore, to get the idea of compulsion 
accepted. 

— 50 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

place in the discussions on the educational estimates 
in the Parliaments and Diets of the confederate 
states. The Ministers took note of the opinions 
expressed, almost all in favour of compulsion, but 
as the question had been raised by the War Office, 
and as the army is an imperial organization, it was 
for the Reichstag to legislate on the matter. ^ 

There would appear to be no insurmountable 
difficulty to prevent the Imperial Government from 

^ Die Jugendorganisation in Baden, Berliner Tagehlatt 
of February 8, 1916. There was an exceptionally full 
discussion in the Bavarian House. The Minister of Reli- 
gion spoke during the sitting of February 4, and advocated 
compulsion and a uniform system for the whole empire 
organized by the State. The representative of the War 
Office spoke in the same strain. Both were in agreement 
with the President, Dr. Wohlgemuth, and of the Deputy, Dr. 
Muller-Meiningen (Hof), whose treatise IVir hraiichen ein 
Reichsjugendgesetzt (published by Teubner at Leipzig) 
expressed the views of Berlin. The Socialists and certain 
Liberals only made reservations with regard to compul- 
sion. Moreover the Ministers were asked to act in such a 
way that their Prussian colleagues should not keep the 
initiative which they had gained for the moment. Miin- 
chener Neneste Nachrichten, January 27, February 4 and 
16, March 25, 1916. The Association of Secondary 
Teachers in Bavaria had convoked at Munich on April 25, 
1 915, all the organizations which were interested in the 
future settlement of the question. At this meeting it was 
decided that in view of the importance of military educa- 
tion, it would be well to reduce the time table, homework 
and the exigencies of examinations in order to provide the 
necessary free time ; for the future, however, this education 
ought to aim at the development of the body and the mind. 

— 51 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

passing an Imperial law dealing with the physical 
culture of the youth of the country with a view to 
the military aptitude of its citizens. It could even 
count on the Socialist vote.^ Parents and employ- 
ers are obliged to send their children and juvenile 
workpeople to the age of sixteen and eighteen years 
old to the compulsory continuation school which 
is held during working hours — they could equally 
well be forced to send them to military training. 

What would be the effect, in face of this national 
duty, of the protestations of a few idealistic peda- 
gogues who were terrified that the time necessary 
for this military training would be taken from the 
periods set aside for Greek, Latin, French and 
English ? 

The support of a certain opinion and a majority 
in Parliament may not, however, suffice to render 
the scheme permanent. The financial question 

^ All the Socialists do not regard the Erziehung zur 
Wehrhaftigkeit, i.e. physical culture, as a preparation for 
miUtary service, in the same way as Liebknecht. His 
colleague Adolf Hoffman declared that school and " Wehr- 
haftigkeit " formed one whole and that it was an Imperial 
question. His party, therefore, asked for an " Imperial 
Education Bill." The Bavarian Socialists concurred in 
this view, but, as also certain sections of the Liberal 
party, they declared themselves opposed to compulsion. 
In the Prussian House the Conservatives clamoured for 
"compulsion." The Minister, however, made no declara- 
tion on the subject, contenting himself with laying stress 
on the patriotic devotion of the teaching profession and of 
the pupils. 

— 52 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

will play a large role in Germany after the war. 
Will the State and Parliament accept the charge 
of this fresh obligation when compulsory education, 
which is more than a century old, has remained up 
to the present without the logical correlative of 
being entirely free ? At present the military author- 
ities grant 50 pfennigs per pupil to the youths' 
companies for the purchase of instruments, maps, 
etc. The reduced fares on the trains and trams need 
not be taken into account. At the end of the war 
the municipalities will find themselves heavily in 
debt and faced with heavy charges on account of 
social reform. They will not, therefore, be in a 
position to subsidize the movement. On the other 
hand can the parents be expected to provide and 
renew clothes and shoes ? It is rather for this 
reason than to avoid confusion with the regular 
army that the Minister of War is ready to " toler- 
ate " a uniform on the condition that it is simple 
and bears no military ornaments. 

It is possible to compel the youths who are in 
any way under school discipline to join the com- 
panies : but the only way in which compulsion 
can be forced on the youths of 18 to 20, who have 
left school and are at work, is by transforming the 
gymnastic societies, the trades unions, the political 
or religious associations into State agents. ^ 

^ A quite recent addition to the law on trades unions 
allows young people to become members. If, on the one 
hand, there is reason to fear that they will become prema- 

— 53 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

The German War Office is ready to strike the iron 
while it is hot, and, in profiting by the immediate 
lessons of the war, is making a propaganda which 
flatters and pleases the pride of the nation. Force 
and organization will, it is alleged, be necessary not 
only for the army but in the politics and commerce 
of the new — the greater — Germany. Thanks to 
these two elements, has not the army marched from 
victory to victory ? The force, however, is often 
dissipated by illness, which is too often the conse- 
quence of vice or simply of abuse of life. ^ 

turely entangled in political discussions, there is every 
reason to hope, on the other, that it will increase their 
sense of civic responsibilities, and that, if the unions organize 
physical training, the young people will spend their leisure 
moments in training rather than in the public-house. Dr. 
Kerschensteiner of Munich, the well known educationalist, 
asserts the adoption of this section as " dangerous madness " 
{Die Woche, vol. 22, May 27, 19 16). The associations 
of young Roman Catholics in the diocese of Munich declared 
that they were willing to collaborate in a movement for the 
physical development of the youth but considered that 
the first aim should be his intellectual and religious well- 
being {Neueste Nachrichten, February 16, 1 916). The Roman 
Catholic societies for the protection of youth have 300,000, 
and the Protestant societies 160,000 voluntary members 
from the families in which a " reasonable state of mind 
dominates." All these societies have a religious aim. 
It would therefore be running the risk of extinguishing 
their influence and existence if they were amalgamated 
with some compulsory organization. Pastor Dehn of 
Berlin [Deutsche Rundschau, June 17, 19 16) is of opinion 
that the associations for the " care of j^outh " [Jugend- 
pflege) should be left outside military preparation. 

^ The German Parliaments have discussed big legal 
measures for the protection of infants, and all the various 

— 54 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

Wealth, which has come too quickly, has brought 
to the rough German " middle class " well being, 
comfort and even luxury, which it appears to be 
using in a wrong manner. Excited moralists and 
ambitious nationalists fear for the future. For a 
long time they had denounced the " weakening of 
racial valour " by the growing needs of the working 
classes : by the pleasant scepticism of the business 
man w^ho frequented the " international palaces," 
by the vice of the so-called artistic taverns, intro- 
duced from abroad by the intellectuals. A return 
should be made to the " national " virtues of the 
old Germans, big eaters, heavy drinkers and stal- 
wart fighters, and to follow the example of the 
uncultivated princes who have created Germany's 
might — Bismarck and the Hohenzollern.^ To 
those who thought thus, the Minister spoke with 
fervour and for the moment they were in the 

associations interested in these subjects have actively 
taken up the question. Lively campaigns have been 
started against venereal disease, against drunkenness, 
against infant mortality and for the protection of natural, 
abnormal and degenerate children. School hygiene is 
recommended and " sex pedagogy " advocated. In short 
everything which, in school or in relation with the school, 
can help to diminish the waste of future generations is 
started ; and appeals and encouragement to increase the 
birth rate and to raise children in a more healthy manner 
are spread in all directions. 

1 Those who ask, in a more cultured spirit, to go " Zuruck 
vom Deutschland Bismarcks zum Deutschland Goethes " 
arc much less numerous. 

— 55 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

majority. 1 The others, including the Sociahsts, 
equally numerous, were told again and again that 
in order to keep the possessions they had, and to 
increase them, every German of the whole empire 
ought to be able to fight with his fists, make his 
sword ring and should keep his powder dry. These, 
they were told, are the secrets of commerce and the 
essentials of fruitful international ententes. 

Organization requires discipline or, as the Germans 
say, " the joyful subordination of the individual 
to the interests of the community." 

The military preparation of youth in making 
the race physically and morally more vigorous, 
aims, according to the statements of the Minister 
of War, at counteracting this spirit of personal 
independence, of exaggerated initiative, of free 
activity, which threatens to degenerate into dis- 
solvent " subjectivism." The only way of com- 
bating this ill, from which " democracies perish," 
of saving the German morale and discipline, is 
by introducing a military education into the schools. 
Naturally those who represent the school, the 
State teachers, are in entire agreement with the 
administration. The leaders of the movement 
and their following do not so much desire the better- 
ment of the race [Ertuchtigung) as the efficient and 

^ Dey wahyhaft-herzerfreuende Erlass (the decree which 
has really gladdened the heart), Professor Dr. Hildebrandt 
wrote, in the Vossische Zeitung of March 20, 1915, speaking 
of the decree which mobilized the young men. 

-56- 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

disciplined valour for the military career {Militdr- 
ische Jugendvorbereitung, Erziehung zur Wehrhaf- 
tigkeit). The congress of German teachers {Lehrer- 
tag) held symbolically, at Whitsuntide in Eisenach, 
at the foot of the Wartburg, where Luther translated 
the Bible, emphasized this distinction in a typical 
resolution. The assembly asked the military author- 
ities to guarantee by imperial legislation the pre- 
paratory school for the army for all the youths from 
seventeen years upwards who could be enrolled 
in the Landsturm. It was, however, of the opinion 
that in the ordinary elementary and continuation 
schools, nothing further was needed than to add 
to the compulsory gymnastics an equally compul- 
sory training in swimming, marching, games, etc. 
This instruction to be given on one afternoon a week, 
on a day specially set aside for the purpose by the 
law. In this way the scholars, up to the age of 
seventeen years, would receive a uniform physical 
instruction and training with a view to preparing 
them for the preparatory school or the army^ The 
Heeresvorschule, if established on these lines, would 
be quite unlike the democratic Swiss " recruits " 
school, in that it would be dominated by the 
military spirit and in that its final aims are quite 

different in character. 

* * * 

The official imposture of the Fatherland attacked 

^ Berliner Tageblatt of June 15, 1916, and other papers of 
the same date. 

— 57 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

by a formidable coalition had just brought about 
complete union. Before the eyes of a hypnotized 
people, the most imposing war machine that had 
ever been seen set forth for the frontiers. It was 
at that moment that the Imperial General Staff 
ordered the military preparation of the youth of 
the country. It was needless to state that it was to 
be permanent and compulsory. The Government 
was certain that by allowing the question to be 
discussed in spite of the state of siege the nation 
would itself demand these two principles : and would 
break down without pity any opposition to their 
application. 

The cases of the Socialist member Liebknecht 
and of the University professor Fr. W. Foerster are 
very characteristic in this respect. 

On March i6 last, during the discussion on 
the Educational Estimates in the Prussian House, 
Liebknecht made a violent protestation against 
" the militarization of the school." " More than 
ever," he said amongst other things, " the primary 
school is exploited nowadays, in order to consolidate 
the position of the ruling classes, and to capture the 
mind of the young proletariat for the benefit of 
these classes and for militarism." The militariza- 
tion of the school has been designed by various 
middle-class partisans as a phenomenon which calls 
for thought. Even at school men are being edu- 
cated to become war-machines. School is a train- 
ing establishment for war. Physical endurance is, 

— 50 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

at this moment, especially in favour, because fresh 
material must be furnished to the Moloch — which 
is militarism. The health of man is, therefore, 
improved in order that he may destroy human life. 
Liebknecht quoted in support of his thesis a decree 
of the President of the government of Frankfurt- 
on the Oder, von Schwerin, who ordered the teachers 
in the secondary schools to " eradicate from the 
minds of their pupils the sentiment of the general 
brotherhood of nations and of international paci- 
fism ; to be very careful not to excuse or attenuate 
the crimes committed against Germany by her 
enemies, and to take every step to inculcate in the 
minds of their scholars hatred and anger." 

Liebknecht learnt, on that day, all the hardships 
of parliamentary procedure. The Government par- 
tisans, led by the Conservatives, covered him with 
insults. The sitting was one of the most uproarious 
that had ever been witnessed in the Prussian House. ^ 
Arrested in the street a short time afterwards Lieb- 
knecht was imprisoned and condemned for High 
Treason. 

A month later a professor of philosophy and 
pedagogy at the University of Munich — Fr. W. 
Foerster made very similar statements, concerning 
the " premature and unseasonable cramming of 
the child mind with military ideas." Very sincere 

1 The analytical account published in the Vorwdrts of 
March 17, 1916, has been followed, as it is more complete 
than the Government papers. 

-■ 59 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

and very individual, a writer of great talent and 
an inspiring lecturer, Prof. Fr. W. Foerster holds 
opinions with regard to the future of his country 
diametrically opposed to those of his contempor- 
aries. He maintains that the principal thing in 
political parties, social classes and religious beliefs 
at home, and in nations of different descent and 
culture abroad, is not so much the force of loud 
speech and of the sword, but the moral force which 
is able to prevent inevitable conflicts and to prepare 
for the union, without which neither individuals 
nor nations can live and prosper. The mihtary 
preparation of youth, Foerster states, forms an 
aggressive and dominating character, devoid of 
force and nobility, incapable of ruling its passions, 
and lacking in balance and judgment in moments 
of stress. Without moral force no useful physical 
action is possible; that, according to him, is the 
fundamental axiom of all education. " Simply to 
form soldiers would injure the greatness of the 
German people. Not only would military success 
not be assured (because the God of War is capri- 
cious) but he would be powerless to develop at home 
or abroad : he would be unable to perform his 
national and international missions, and it would be 
impossible for him to turn his natural and acquired 
qualities to account." 

Fr. W. Foerster, whilst being thoroughly and 
proudly German, is a clear-sighted pedagogue. 
His works on education are masterpieces of pro- 

— 60 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

found and just observation. He considers that it is 
impossible to make children realize all the serious- 
ness of a terrible war, and to apply to them the 
relentless discipline of the military system. 

The school can and should only give a general 
and appropriate physical education, borrowing at 
the most from the military system certain interest- 
ing exercises such as those performed by the " Boy 
Scouts." He concludes: '' Young men courageous 
in their military service — that is German; a mili- 
tia of young Germans is not." ^ 

In the first chapter of a book, very well known 
in Germany, on " The World War in Education," 
Fr. W. Foerster described the new pedagogical 
duties of our day. Having regard to his great 
authority as Sociologist and Pedagogue, " he had 



^ Berliner Tagehlatt, February ii and 12, 1916 : 
" Deutsch ist eine wehrhafte Jugend, undeutsch ist eine 
deutsche Jugendwehr." According to the Vossische Zeitung 
of June 29, 1915, there was a Germsin Jugendwehr a,t the 
time of the thirty years' war. The learned paper reprints 
from a book entitled " Irenomachie, Of Peace and War " ; 
a dialogue between Peace (Irene) and the Capitanus puero- 
rum who directs the exercises of the pueri milites. " The 
child, says Peace, practises what he has learnt ; it would 
therefore be better to teach him to keep peace than to make 
war." " We are at war," answers the lieutenant. " That 
results from the fact that nobody knows how to keep peace : 
it will be re-established, and will be well suited to your 
Kingdom. " " What have we to discuss with this woman ? ' ' 
says the subaltern, "let us continue our exercise." This 
reminiscence bears the impress of the present time. 

— 61 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

not been put in the same boat " as the " molluscs ^ 
who attempt to introduce into the school ideas 
which are contrary to brotherly love, and to the 
reconciliation of nations," and to the " cowards " 
who lack the courage to profit by the occasion to 
make " the ideal of the exclusively German reality " 
triumph, and to leave the German lower classes 
brutally to assert their superiority alone against 
all, by all the German methods which war has 
taught them. 

Fr. W. Foerster, unluckily for himself, is unfor- 
tunate enough to have ideas worthy of a wide- 
minded thinker ; he has the misfortune to 'deduce 
from them, with relentless logic and inflexible 
scientific honesty, the facts of the political and social 
history of his own country and of other nations ; 
and he makes the error of upholding his ideas with a 
courage all the more noble in that it is rare amongst 
his compatriots, at a time when they, hypnotized, 
throw themselves at the feet of the " military 
Moloch." The University of Munich has publicly 

1 Schule und Friedensziele. Eine natioyiale Gefahr, by 
the secondary schoolmaster Erich Meyer in the Tdgliche 
Rundschau of January 2 and 3, 1916. A lie jene Typen 
von Nachtmutzen Trotteln Schlappschwdnzen, Waschlappen 
[ein Segen dass wir in unserer SpracJie diese herzerfrischen- 
den Anschaulichkeiten haben) sie werden wach und erheben 
ihre Stimmchen (all these types of weaklings, chicken- 
hearted fellows, hangers-on (how fortunate that we have 
in our language these realistic expressions which rejoice 
the heart) wake up and raise their little voices. 

— 62 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

dissociated itself from its troublesome member, 
who dared, in a Berlin newspaper, to dissuade the 
people from the military preparation which the 
majority of the Germans desired.^ 

So far no Imperial law has been passed. The 
gymnastic societies have elaborated a project ; 
but the governmental press has received their 
initiative and their proposals with ironical disdain. 
There are some patriots who would like to turn 
Germany into a big " school for N.C.O.'s " — with a 
little science added to leaven the time table ! 

The Imperial Government awaits the course of 
events. For the moment it is sufficient if the 
federal authorities enforce, in the day schools and 
gymnastic and sporting clubs, the decree of 1914. 
The German illustrated papers contain photographs 
of physical exercises, parades and distribution of 
prizes, etc., which show that the military authorities 
have the question of " youths' companies " well 
in hand. 

In the autumn of 1916, the Prussian War Minister 
wanted to see the results of the decree of 1914. A 

^ This is the famous " Foerster Case " which the French 
Press has reported incompletely and in certain details 
incorrectly. Herr Foerster is the son of a Berlin astronomer 
who is best known as the advocate of moral culture [ethische 
Kultur) and as consignee of the miserable manifesto of the 
ninety-three. He was educated at the Technical School 
of Zurich and later at the University of Vienna. Thence 
he was appointed to Munich not, it is said, by the Senate, 
but by the Catholic Government of Bavaria, This is more 

-63 - 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

general competition of all the organizations which 
had been formed in Prussia, with a view to the 
military preparation of the rising generation was 
arranged. The report on this meeting was sent to 
the Emperor, who replied by an " order " issued 
to Headquarters on January 8, 1917, and published 
in the official Army Orders. It was reproduced in 
all the German papers. In it William II expressed 
his royal thanks to all those who had co-operated 
in this patriotic work ; and especially to the youths 
who " from duty to the Fatherland, give up their 
leisure to strengthen their bodies and to train 
themselves for war." The War Minister seized 
this occasion to complete the main lines of the 
military preparation by certain clever recommenda- 
tions. The following give their tenor : — • 

(i) Military preparation is an institution which 
has to do with military service [militdr- 
dienstliche Einrichtung). It is quite dis- 

than enough to account for his not being a prophet in his 
own country. 

" Le Musee Pedagogique " (41 rue Gay-Lussac, Paris) 
contains the following works by Prof. Fr. W. Foerster : 
Schule und Character — Beitrage zur Padagogik des Gehor- 
sams und zur Reform der Schuldisciplin (Zurich, 19 10) ; 
Schuld und Suhne — Einige psychologische und padagogische 
Grundfragen des Verbrecherproblems und der Jugendfiir- 
sorge (Munich, 191 1), and the translations of Pour former 
le caraciire (translation by Thirion, Paris, sixth edition, 
Fischbacher) ; and L'ecole et le caracUre (The moral pro- 
blems of school life), translation by Borel, (published by 
Fishbacher). 

-64- 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

tinct from the organizations which aim at the 
general development of youth {Jugend- 
pflege). 

(2) In order to help the delegates and to organize 

courses of instruction, for the use of the 
teachers, the generals commanding dis- 
tricts ^ and the general royal commissariat ^ 
should obtain the voluntary assistance of 
officers unfit for active service ; or should 
commandeer officers on leave ; or civilians 
having the rank of officer. One of these 
officers will be attached to each delegate ; 
two, if the delegate's district is a very 
large one. Officers who have already had 
experience in the training of youth should 
be taken first. 

(3) Medical advisers — if possible doctors whose 

official duty is the care of children — should 
be got to interest themselves in the institu- 
tion. 

(4) The directors and instructors of the various 

units are selected by the delegates ; and 
should promise to teach their group in 
accordance with the directions of the 
military authorities. Schools, societies or 
associations for the physical development 



"^ Ad interim — replacing, during the war, the generals 
commanding the army corps at the Front. 
2 For Berlin and the Mark of Brandenburg. 

— 65 — B 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

of youth, etc., will be able to make sugges- 
tions as to the choice of the directors and 
instructors. 

(5) In the event of a dearth of directors and 

instructors the delegates will ask the General 
commanding the district to commandeer 
provisionally {zur Aushilfe) officers, N.C.O.'s 
and men who have been wounded in the 
war. 

(6) Delegates, directors and instructors are again 

most strongly recommended to collaborate 
closely with 'the civil authorities — with the 
schools, with the clergy, with the official 
committees who are interested in the educa- 
tion of the rising generation and with private 
societies. In order to simplify the arrange- 
ments with the clergy, with regard to the 
exercises which have to take place on Sunday, 
they should be fixed, once and for all, at 
a time which suits the local conditions. 

(7) All overwork of the young people, e.g. long 

marches with packs, is forbidden. Night 
operations must not curtail the sleep of the 
youths, and must be limited to the hours 
of twilight and dawn. 

(8) It is of the highest importance to make and 

conserve suitable training grounds and 
means of instruction. The results already 
obtained permit of the certain hope that 
the interested parties, efficaciously sup- 
— 66 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

ported by the Government and the com- 
munal authorities, will procure for our 
youths training grounds, if possible in 
the immediate vicinity of the large towns, 
and the necessary means of exercise, in 
order to make them more vigorous and apt 
for military service (Ertuchtigung und 
W ehrhaftmacJmng) . 

In winter, a sufficient number of halls 
and large rooms will be found in the towns 
and large villages ; and empty barns in 
the country in which physical exercises and 
military movements can be carried out 
{yVehrturnen). 

Those interested in this movement will 
learn with pleasure and satisfaction that the 
spontaneous and devoted activity of the 
directors and leaders, as also the joyous 
ardour of " the young men " to enlist, have 
received merited recognition from such 
high quarters. There is every reason to be- 
lieve that the masters and the " young 
men " will continue in the future to devote 
themselves with pleasure and enthusiasm 
to the serious work which they have 
voluntarily undertaken ; especially so now 
that the " All Highest " has shown his 
keen interest in their patriotic work ; and 
that he has, by his praise, also shown to 
the public at large the great importance to 
-67 - 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

the army of the mihtary preparation of the 
youth of the country. 

This new appeal — because that is what it really 
was, presents the military preparation as it is under- 
stood by official, Prussian, Germany " in its true 
colours." William II and his Minister of War 
address the whole of the corps already formed, 
and the civil groups, including the clergy. The 
aim is not hidden in the least nor the assurance 
that the institution will remain the same in char- 
acter, in memory of the great events after the war. 

Things will have changed in Germany by the time 
the discussion on the desired Imperial Law — if it 
ever takes place — is held. More numerous and 
less timid objections will make themselves heard. 
Military preparation will nevertheless continue. It 
is in the Prussian temperament. The " State — the 
Educator " will abandon neither the nationalist 
instruction nor the military education, which she 
has followed since the beginning of the last century, 
whether she does it openly or under the cloak of 
pedagogy, of sport and of hygiene. 

It is the duty of her neighbours who have been 
warned, to be on their guard. 



68 



AS A WAR NURSERY 



CHAPTER III 
Moral and Civic Education 

THIS is not the place to judge the morale 
of the German army, their Press, their inter- 
nal and external policy or their Civil Service during 
the war. It is to be hoped for their own sake that 
they will find amongst themselves some " Foersters " 
who will one day speak to the nation perfectly 
sincerely and loyally. They have already realized 
what has happened in the realm of education. A 
moral crisis has broken out amongst the youth of 
the nation with such violence and so suddenly that 
it has been impossible either to hide or to modify 
it. Prof. Fr. W. Foerster seems to be right in demand- 
ing before everything a healthy, moral pedagogy. 

The Germans have always boasted of the educat- 
ive value of their pedagogy ; and they seem to have 
some reason for their pretension. Their early 
educators emphasized the spiritual side of educa- 
tion, and their most heated pedagogical discussions 
were aimed at the partisans of education and the 
pedants of instruction. French educationalists will 
remember with what sarcasm certain German peda- 
gogues, especially the theologians, hailed the appear- 

-69- 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

ance of moral education in the undenominational 
primary schools in France. They would hardly 
allow the extenuating circumstances which the 
frankness of the French admissions with regard to 
their commencing experiences merited. These 
could not be regarded as conclusive ^ as the curri- 
culum for the new education was being devised, 
and the teachers could not successfully give, at 
once, instruction calling for such delicate handling. 
After lengthy discussions, and thanks to the patient 
efforts of certain earnest pedagogues, the German 
authorities decreed that moral instruction should 
be given, leading up to religious teaching, in the 
history classes, and reading lessons. What is the 
use — they said — of creating a special kind of in- 
struction to develop qualities which have always 
flourished of themselves in the minds of the German 
people, in such a way as to have raised her moral 
" Kultur " far above that of all other nations. It 
is evident that the German educationalists have 
never really grasped the nature and effect of the 
French moral instruction. A very amusing proof 
is given by a curious " war " article in the Frank- 
furter Zeitung.^ 

^ We refer to the criticism levelled in Germany at the re- 
port of F. Lichtenberger, published by the " Musee Pedago- 
gique " for the exhibition of 1889, in Memoire set Documents 
scolaire, 2 s6rie, No. 28. The letters exchanged between 
Mr. F. Buisson and Mr. Ch. Wagner on this subject are no 
less interesting (Fischbacher, Paris). 

2 February 16, 1916. 

— 70 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

An officer of the German medical services found ^ 
in the school in a small French village of i8o in- 
habitants, situated on the banks of the Meuse, two 
notebooks v/hich had belonged to a little girl in 

the middle standards, Georgette M , that is to 

say, according to the German officer's belief, to 
a scholar not yet thirteen years old, but possibly 
two years j^ounger. These notebooks bear the 
date of the school years 1909 and 1910. The officer 
sent them to a friend, Ludwig Goldschmidt of 
Gotha, who considered them of sufficient interest 
to warrant their contents being published for the 
information of the readers of the Frankfurt papers. 
His article is entitled Kant in a French Village 
School. It is indeed the philosophy of the author 
of the Criticism of Pure Reason, and the moral of 
the Prussian thinker that M. Goldschmidt discovers 
in the pages stolen from a French primary school. 
The audacity of the village schoolmaster on the 
Meuse disconcerts him just as much as his talent. 
" For," he says, at the beginning of his article, 
" the present day French celebrities in the domain 
of philosophy only have the renown which they 
ascribe to themselves : they are not even plagiar- 
ists, so completely are their writings devoid of sense 
and reason." " As for Kant, no single Frenchman — 
with the exception of the ' noble ' Mme. de Stael — 

Other cases of the interest displayed by the invaders 
in searching the French Ubraries and schools will be noted, 
and their reflections quoted. 

— 71 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

has ever understood any of his works," etc., etc. 
Therefore, on reading in the two note books, set 
forth in the most complete and clear simplicity^ 
the " ideas " of morale and of philosophy which the 
philosopher of Koenigsberg had formulated of yore 
for the use of his compatriots, the good German was 
plunged into a profound and admiring stupefaction. 
What a great pity that " this perfect master, with 
such a forceful personality, should be condemned to 
lecture to the restricted audience of a small French 
village ! " 

" Everything which fills the minds of the children 
during successive days appears in living form before 
us. Everything is well arranged. Each day has 
its allotted subject — the maxim for the day. These 
are usually questions of morals, the moral law, false- 
hood, personal dignity, moderation, honesty, anger, 
pride, modesty. Such are the subjects which this 
' village Socrates ' expounds to his pupils. Other- 
wise they are details about the Constitution, the 
State, the Commune and the muncipal council, 
etc., etc." 

The daily lesson is treated in three parts. Care- 
fully chosen moral phrases are used as the copy for 
the writing lesson ; then follows a dictation, a short 
composition or an explanation, and finally a problem 
the data of which refer to the maxim of the day. 
" Only once is there any exception to this arrange- 
ment, and this exception does not appear due to 
chance (sic !) ; that is when the master, in the 

— 72 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

lesson on lying, had the entire verb : to speak the 
truth, conjugated." 

The arithmetical problem set in connexion with 
the lesson on War, was to calculate to how many 
working people an annuity of 600 francs could have 
been given if the five milliards paid to the conquer- 
ors in 1871 had been lent out at 4 per cent. " How- 
ever," Goldschmidt says, " the master is not a 
militant Socialist, because on the cover of one of 
the books is a strong condemnation of strikes ; 
he is a good patriot and a true Republican, because 
he dictates to his pupils that " the Republic is the 
final government of France." 

The paragraphs on the love of one's own country, 
on true patriotism, and on the lessons to be learnt 
from History, appeared so excellent to the German 
critic that he translated them in their entirety. In 
these, the French schoolmaster says to the children 
that " true love for one's country does not consist 
in slandering strangers, nor in despising those who 
have left France : that all nations have contributed 
their share to civilization : — that all possess their 
illustrious men, their scholars, their heroes, their 
poets and their artists , that those so-called patriots 
who wanted to revive religious persecutions and 
civil war, are not worthy to be called French." 
Equally admirable are the paragraphs in which are 
set forth all the political catastrophes which in the 
space of a century — the nineteenth — have crushed 
France more than any other country. The pupils 

— 7Z — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

are told to " profit by these national misfortunes ; 
to realize not only the exceptional qualities of the 
French race, but also its defects, so that they may 
become more clear-sighted than past generations 
and so avoid the return of such ills." Gold- 
schmidt sees, in the copied maxim written at the 
head of the chapter on lying, a paraphrase of the 
answer given by Kant to the King of Prussia, when 
the latter made the philosopher promise to refrain 
from attacking religion. " No one is obliged to 
say all he thinks ; but all he says should be in agi*ee- 
ment with his thoughts." 

Finally the first lesson of 1910 — commencing with 
these words " The conscience is the code of moral 
law " — is followed by a dictation which, according 
to the German critic, is a masterpiece of enlightened 
and just exposition of the " Categorical Impera- 
tive." " The simple village schoolmaster exhibits 
therein a loftiness which shames the most subtle 
philosophers." 

In short, Goldschmidt is full of enthusiasm for 
the contents of the notebooks ; for the lessons on 
morals and civics which the French elementary 
schoolmaster showers on the little girls. He would 
like to quote them all. But, do you believe that he 
is capable of recognizing loyally and without reserve 
all the merit of this unrivalled teacher ? Or of 
admitting that possibly other French teachers give 
the same noble lessons ? It is certain that it passed 
through his mind to ask himself whether such a moral 

— 74 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

and civic instruction was not that which Repubhcan 
France gave to all her children , but he immediately 
dismissed the thought. 

Herr Goldschmidt is German, and as such, from the 
natural trend of his mind, likes to admire a particu- 
lar case. But his '' science " does not allow him 
even to suppose that there are other similar cases 
in France, or to allow that this " lofty " instruction 
is " French." This '* Village Socrates " could 
never have learnt at a French training college, or 
borrowed from a French manual, the lessons which 
he dictates ! He sums up his conviction in these 
words : — ■' All that is to be found in these notebooks, 
is too characteristic of an individual to be attri- 
buted to general instruction." 

It is evident that Herr Goldschmidt of Gotha knows 
neither the French manual nor the directions issued 
by their Minister of Education. He is equally 
unaware of the tiresome but salutary disputes which 
have arisen in connexion with the manuals of moral 
instruction. If he had known, he would have been 
only too happy to have used them as arguments 
against the French. No, his reasons for refusing 
to allow them any merit are entirely different : 
" How can the French and the English dare to refer 
the Germans to Kant's theories of human dignity 
and moral duty, seeing that they themselves have 
lost all idea of the one and the other ! If Kant — 
a German — was able to rise to such noble concep- 
tions, the German people, and they alone, have 

— 75 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

them, so to speak, bred in their blood. Have 
not the French and the EngHsh constantly since 
the outbreak of war, violated the rights of Man 
by their campaign of lies ; by the proscription of 
the scholars affiliated to their societies, etc. etc." 

On the cover of one of the note books an harangue 
against strikes — but " naturally in favour of French 
industry " — is printed. 

The schoolmaster is a good patriot, but France 
is governed by a set of Chauvinists. A madman has 
assassinated the only man in France who was not 
persuaded of the ''justice of a war of revenge.'* 
France has sought and let loose War in order to 
have her revenge. The English and the French lie 
when they pretend that they have been forced to 
wage war. It is all very well for the French school- 
master to say to his little French scholars in his 
lessons on History : " Let us profit by our misfor- 
tunes to make us better," and to proclaim in his 
talk on War : " Every war is a monstrous iniquity," 
or again : " One of the greatest crimes is to kill or 
mutilate a nation. France has 7iot become any 
better. Has she not baptized one of her men-of- 
war The Revenge 1 " She has always and ceaselessly 
engendered hate of the German in the minds of her 
youth." The good critic concludes : " Has the 
unfortunate country but this one man (the school- 
master of the Httle village on the Meuse) with an 
untainted mind ? Jaures, the enemy of re- 
venge and this schoolmaster," he says, " accuse 

-76- 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

France. On the other hand the German Emperor 
has proclaimed : We seize the sword with a clean 
hand, etc. etc. There is the truth." 

It is thus that an intelHgent German avoids facts ! 
He has before his eyes the material proof of a moral 
and civic instruction of which he is forced to admire 
the peaceful, human and nobly philosophical char- 
acter. He protests with his purest scientific sin- 
cerity, but he is unable to prevent himself from 
making science lie, and from disfiguring truth. 
A singular state of mind which can neither be ex- 
plained nor excused by warlike Hypnosis. It would 
be wronging Herr Goldschmidt to think that he was 
alone in this view. Only too many of his " scien- 
tific " compatriots have the same mental outlook. 
These vain Pharisees have compromised for all 
time the probity and good name of German science, 
because they have disdained the moral lessons of 
their great philosophers. For science also has need 
of moral force to protect herself against the errors 
of passion and prejudice. 

The homage done by a " scientific " German to 
an unknown French schoolmaster should not be 
displeasing to the French. 

Herr Goldschmidt could have found thousands of 
similar notebooks at the London Exhibition in 
1908 and in Brussels in 1910. The moral and civic 
instruction of the teacher on the banks of the Meuse 
is that of all the French elementary schools. 
Goldschmidt can strongly recommend it to his 

-77- 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

compatriots. It has been found by the French to 
be good, and they are determined to continue it. 

Herr Goldschmidt, of Gotha, Httle thought, when 
he pubUshed his article, of the startUng refutation 
which he gives not only to the German thesis of 
France athirst for revenge, seeking and provoking 
war ; but to all the insidious calumnies which the 
Germans have spread about the French decadence 
and their moral rottenness. 

At the end of the war, they will perhaps realize 

how they have been deceived as to the real value 

of the French morale, and their own. 
* * * 

What has become of this innate morality of France's 
presumptuous neighbours ? This " colossal " war 
should have given them an unparalleled opportun- 
ity of proving it to the sceptic and jealous " deca- 
dents." The pitiful exploits of their army — " the 
best disciplined in the world " — have edified the 
world at large on this point. " It is War," they say. 
No, it is not the intoxication of battle : — the cruel 
necessity of hand-to-hand fighting which has driven 
the soldiers of William II to dishonour themselves 
for all time. Those in the rear, the recruits of 
to-morrow, have shown themselves in their own 
country, especially in the towns, worthy rivals to 
their elders. Day by day, the war has shown the 
inanity of the " fundamental " morality of the 
Germans, and the inefficacy of their educational 
measures to cultivate it. 

-78- 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

Whilst France and England, following the example 
of the American juvenile courts, created special 
courts for the trial of young offenders, Germany 
contented herself with introducing into her Code 
certain additional paragraphs, dealing with the 
repression of crime amongst minors. School dis- 
cipline and the various societies for the protection 
of juveniles were relied on, rather than police or- 
ganizations to rescue precocious criminals. These 
societies have increased to such an extent, and have 
shown such activity, that the statistics proving that 
since 1906 the number of juvenile criminals brought 
to justice has steadily decreased, may be accepted 
as correct. Statistics are, how^ever, accommodating 
and youthful criminality is more difficult to root 
out than illiteracy.^ 

The recrudescence, since the early days of the 
war, has been so sudden and so disquieting that it 
has been impossible to hide it. The newspapers of 
every shade of opinion have written about it openly. 
They felt it was necessary to recognize the facts and 
to speak of them frequently ; not so much for the 
purpose of pointing out their true causes, as to 
quiet opinion and to announce that efficacious 
measures were being taken. 

^ The Germans claim the honour of having the lowest 
number of ilhterates with the colours (about 0*2 per cent.). 
From the prisoners' letters we have been able to see, it 
would appear that the " examination for recruits " is not 
very exacting. As for the letters written by the working 
class women, the French workpeople and peasants write 
more easily and correctly. 

— 79 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

As early as the month of June in the first year of 
the war at the approach of the summer hohdays, 
the Berliner Tagehlatt ^ gave an account of a meeting 
of the benevolent societies of the Capital, which 
had been summoned at the Guild Hall of Berlin to 
discuss the best means of keeping the scholars off 
the streets during the time when the schools were 
closed. It was then that the full scope of the ill 
was discovered. The boys wandered about in 
the streets ; went to cinematographs, stole, smoked, 
drank, and gave themselves up to various forms of 
debauchery with girls of their own age (12 to 16 years). 
It was asserted that the war was the cause of this 
shameless behaviour : the authority of the father 
— who was mobilized — was lacking and the mothers 
were obliged to work away from their homes or 
to remain weary hours before the shops in order 
to obtain provisions. Warlike enthusiasm had 
" turned the young brains." The headmaster of 
one school stated that during the first weeks of the 
war 1,500 elementary schoolmasters in Berlin had 
been called to the colours : the women teachers who 
took their places had not sufficient power ; these 
facts made the children irregular and restless : 
moreover many of the school buildings were occu- 
pied by the troops : the instruction was upset by 
the change of masters (one class had as many as 
six in eight weeks) ; by the grouping of classes 
owing to the lack of masters ; by the frequent 

June 25, 1915. 
^80 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

collections and by war work of all sorts, etc. 

What was to be done ? The societies arranged 
playing fields, organized excursions and opened 
workshops. The children, however, preferred the 
street. The holidays ended, the Central Society 
for the Protection of Young People could only 
acknowledge the increase of the ill. Stringent 
measures were asked for. 

At another conference, on February 4, 1916, held 
this time in the Prussian Upper House, sad details 
were disclosed.^ 

The band of youthful hooligans numbered in its 
ranks double the number of boys from twelve to 
fourteen years of age than of older or younger 
children ; and they were not all children of the work- 
ing classes. Certain orators tried to excuse these 
errors of youth by the need of activity : by the 
instinct of liberty, by the craving for adventure, 
unchained by the " glorious " war ; by mischievous 
books, etc. 

The specialists were of a different opinion. Accord- 
ing to them, very few cases were due to hereditary 
or psychological tendencies. They discovered the 
cause in the influence of the home surroundings 
and in the lack of education. 

The statistics given by the organizations whose 

^ Vossische Zeitung, January 13 and February 5, 1916. 
Berliner Tageblatt, January 14, February 17, and March 
18, 1 916. Tdgliche Rundschau, February 5, 1916. Koln- 
ische Zeitung, February 5, 1916. 

— 81 — F 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

duty it is to repress juvenile crime, and by the very 
numerous benevolent societies for the protection 
of the young which help them in their work, had 
led one to think that the year 1906, with 55,270 
cases brought before the courts, created a maxi- 
mum.^ 

The decrease after 1906 is probably accounted 
for by a more exact differentiation between crimes 
and small offences, and infringement of regulations 
which had been made, so as not to send to the 
courts those cases which could be dealt with by the 
benevolent societies for the protection of youth. 
These cases were not registered any more after 1906. 
If the authorized estimate of M. von Liszt 2 is to be 
accepted three out of every four of the children 
charged are saved from appearing before the magis- 
trates. On the other hand it must not be forgotten 
that the principle of compulsory education very 
strictly appHed throughout Germany had been 
extended in 1906 to the continuation schools ; that 
is to say that many children remained till 16, 17 
and even 18 years old under school discipline. If, 
nevertheless, the relaxation of supervision in the 
few months of war had produced this surprising 

^ 30-179 cases in 1882 ; 42,485 cases in 1892 ; 51,000 
cases in 1902 in Prussia alone. After 1906 these figures de- 
cline. In the last two quarters of 1914 and 1915, however, 
the figures for Berlin alone were 240 : — 330 and 612 : — 1034 
respectively. 

2 Berliner Tagehlatt, January 14, 1916, second supple- 
ment. 

— 82 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

and distressing criminality in these children, it proved 
that neither the school, with its innumerable 
auxiHary and complementary works, nor the judi- 
cial and protective organizations w^ere sufficient 
to have the upper hand, in a lasting manner, over 
the instincts of the race. 

This fact is realized in Germany. The Frank- 
furter Zeitung considered it politic to publish an 
important leading article on this question. ^ The 
big Liberal and Democratic paper wishes to put the 
people on guard against the alarmist exaggerations 
and brutal measures for repression. " Fortun- 
ately the situation is not of this gravity ; it would 
be curious if it were otherwise and if the moral 
forces existing in the German people had suddenly 
lost all their influence on the youth of the coun- 
try." The journalist does not attempt to deny the 
fact of the moral decadence of the youth. He in- 
deed admits that neither at school nor at home has 
sufficient been done to prevent it. The w^ar has 
caused a scourge to break forth which has been 
germinating for a long time and which has its origin 
in the " exaggerated and ever growing subjec- 
tivism " of present day Germany. The " good old- 
fashioned obedience " and parental authority have 
everywhere given way before the idea of greater 
freedom and a more complete individual independ- 
ence of the younger generation. The discipline 
which is able to reconcile this obedience to the 
^ February 5, 1916. 

-83- 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

irresistible need of liberty created by modern life 
has not yet been discovered. Whilst waiting for 
the time after the war, when this " all-important 
problem " will be fully studied, the Frankfurter 
Zeitung can only commend the intervention of the 
supreme military authorities who apply the rigours 
of a state of siege equally to children as to those who 
contribute to corrupt them. 

The admission is embarrassed but it is complete. 
The moral crisis of the German youth is general. It 
has broken out on account of the war naturally 
with more violence in the large centres than else- 
where. The actual evolution of German society 
can — nay must — be regarded as aetiology. It 
remains to be explained why this evolution has 
taken place at the expense of morality. It has been 
established that pedagogy has failed in its efforts 
to prevent the crisis. This fact proves that peda- 
gogy had not the necessary means of action. In 
other words the moral instruction is insufficient, 
or bad. 

The Frankfurter Zeitung asserts, without giving 
the proof, that it is the same mth other nations, 
but it adds, " the Germans have the good habit of 
not allowing such things quietly to follow their 
course." Indeed the Government does not seem at 
all inclined to allow the pedagogues and the societies 
for the protection of the young alone to arrange the 
problem of moral education. The generals com- 
manding districts and the civil authorities have 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

intervened. The former have acted, rather than 
the Minister of the Interior and the municipalities, 
with a heavy hand. The General who commands at 
Cassel regards all young people under i8 years old 
as persons to be watched ; and he punishes offenders 
with fines up to £5 or with imprisonment up to one 
year. It might be a dream : a general deciding 
that smoking, loitering in the streets, going to 
cinemas or to cafes without being properly accom- 
panied are offences requiring serious punishment 
in a young man who, as soon as he is 18 years old, 
will go to the Front, who earns his own livelihood and 
sometimes that of his relations, who is a student, 
or a cadet officer, denotes a usurpation of sphere 
and a contempt for individual liberty which promises 
disagreeable surprises for the German citizens, as 
soon as the state of siege is ended. The same 
general has also decreed that no workman under 
21 years of age may receive his wages himself, 
but must have them collected by a person of trust. ^ 
It is true that in certain towns the age limit of 



^ The General who commands at Brandenburg, consider- 
ing that the young workmen earn too much, forces the 
masters only to pay them a part of their wages, putting 
the remainder in the savings bank. At this time of loans 
compulsory saving [Sparzwang) can be defended. The 
eagerness of the populace to " sacrifice all on the altar of 
the Fatherland " ill withstands, so it appears, the length 
of the trial. The restrictive and coercive measures taken 
to stimulate it are no longer of any importance in Germany. 

-85- 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

" youth " is i6 years old. There is no need to 
labour the point. 

A certain German opinion has arisen from this 
brutal interference of the military authorities in 
the sphere of pedagogy. Several liberal-minded 
thinkers have drawn attention to the fact that many 
of the offences punished are of the number of those 
which there would he no idea of referring to the police 
in other civilized countries. They have opposed the 
idea of immediately passing a special law " to pro- 
tect the youth of the country."' The measures 
established before the war seem to them amply 

sufficient. 

* * * 

That the state of war has brought to light a deplor- 
able moral state of the German youth is denied by no 
one. Thenceforward it will be useless for the Ger- 
man pedagogues to boast of the inborn morality 
of their race, and of the excellence of their educa- 
tional methods — no one will believe them. There 
is something changed in the Germans since Bis- 
marck's day ; and France, so decried by them, 
gives them to-day a proud answer. 

The German " subjectivism," if there is any, 
cannot be superior to the " subjectivism " of Eng- 
land and France ; but whilst in England and 
France it is cultivated and directed with respect, 
German pedagogy does nothing but fetter it with 
the discipline of another age. 

One of the most dauntless critics of school peda- 

— 86 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

gogy as actually practised in Germany, the " revo- 
lutionary " pedagogue Dr. G. Wynecken, sees in 
the present events a peremptory justification of 
his principles for radical educational reform. In 
his " Thoughts on the Education of the Young " 
he goes so far as to declare the family, the State and 
the Church are all equally incapable of educating 
the young for the good of the general community. 
According to him the war has shown of what youth 
is capable, if the yoke of superannuated and con- 
ventional tutelage were removed. Youth should 
be admired and trusted, and not constantly har- 
assed with mistrusting persecution. Children need 
guides and comrades, not jailers. The mechanical 
methods of the classroom and external military 
discipline, which only create indifferent and irre- 
sponsible beings, are repulsive to their natural love 
of liberty and action. The master, the friend and 
not the dictator of the class. The master and 
scholars should be united by a bond of mutual 
responsibility. It is the moment to stud}/ youth 
and to cease ruling the scholars with the rod.^ 

Dr. Wynecken is convinced that a new school, 
the autonomous school — will arise from these " sub- 
jective " ideas. The masters will be men who see 
in education their vocation ; whilst business men 
will be called in to give practical instruction. In 
associating with the children they will create a 

^ Academische Rundschau, June, 1915. Frankfurter 
Zeitung, June 14, 1915. 

-87- 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

kind of brotherhood for the common good. Educa- 
tion has no other end than to render the youth of 
a country able to fulfil all the present and future 
needs : in other words to create strong, active and 
useful members of the Fatherland. This education 
has neither need of antiquity nor of an historical 
past. Useless torturing of the mind by the formal- 
ism of " dead things " is abhorrent to it ; it lives 
in and for the future. ^ 

It is hardly probable that the " activism " of a 
Wynecken and " subjectivism " will outweigh 
" militarism " or, if this word shocks, the peda- 
gogy of discipline and subordination in Germany. 
Without doubt, when the war has ended, the an- 
tithesis between the pedagogy, generally speaking 
humanitarian and the utilitarian, and political 
pedagogy, will have lost much of its acuteness. 
The frenzy of the first months has passed away. 
The duration of the war, the enormous sacrifice of 
human lives, the economic difficulties, and the 

^ Without going to such extremes certain Sociahsts want 
the German school to be a " school of ' Kultur ' " {Kul- 
turschule) freed from the bondage of the past, which poisons 
the best years of youth ; and independent of historical 
thought. It will not be a school of preparation for the 
struggle for existence, but it will make the youth of the 
country capable of fighting for the right, and it will make 
the young strong for the efficient action called for by the 
realities of life. This is the idea expounded by Dr. Kurt 
Hiller in a lecture delivered at the Free Association of stu- 
dents for social action at Berhn {Vossische Zeitung, June 

29, 1915)- 

— 88 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

anxiety with regard to the questions after the war, 
which to certain people appear less and less like the 
limitless exploitation of the overwhelming victory, 
have calmed many pedagogic ambitions and led 
the controversy to more reasonable questions (which 
have possibilities of realization). 

The hold of politics on German schools is, how- 
ever, of long date and strong. An entire change, 
taking into consideration the new factors, is neces- 
sary if they are to be freed from its sway. In 
Germany they are beginning to realize this fact and 
they publicly proclaim, in order to achieve their 
end, a moral and civic instruction, based on the 
principles of the great thinkers of the eighteenth 
century. 

The German ofhcer who stole the notebooks from 
the little French village school on the banks of the 
Meuse would be readily forgiven if they could but 
point out to the Germans the path to be followed. 



^89^ 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 



CHAPTER IV 
The ** Einheitsschule '' 

IN Germany primary instruction is given in 
" popular " schools, and secondary instruc- 
tion in " higher " schools. These two classes of 
education have each followed their own line of 
development, and up to the present no effort to 
unite them has succeeded even to the point of 
drawing them nearer to each other. 

The " popular " school has shown itself worthy 
of the care which successive Governments have 
expended on it. It has rendered valuable services 
to the State. The victories of 1866 and 1870 were 
attributed to the German schoolmaster. Even to- 
day he is represented as marching at the head of the 
nation.^ The primary curriculum having been 
augmented by higher courses of study, and by a 
whole system of compulsory " improvements," the 
primary school has become ambitious. Not only 
is it jealous of the excessive privileges kept for 
secondary instruction, but from being a people's 
school it would like to become the fundamental 

^ See above, p. 29, note. 
— 90 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

school of the entire nation {allgemeine Volkes- und 
Grundschule) . 

If we turn to secondary education we shall see 
that the classical gymnasium was forced in the 
second half of the last century to tolerate the estab- 
lishment of a rival on its domain, till then a holy 
of holies : this rival was the semi-classical second- 
ary, or first-grade school (Realgymnashim) which 
still retains Latin, but replaces Greek by modern 
languages and by scientific teaching of a more 
thorough and extensive kind ; then there is the 
Realschule pure and simple, a non-classical second- 
ary school, of higher and lower grade, which pro- 
vides an entirely modern course of study, and which 
in its lower classes borders upon the higher primary 
school, without however desiring to become one 
with it. At the time of the conferences of 1890 and 
1900, the Emperor thought he ought to sanction 
the technical or modern movement favoured by 
manufacturing and commercial Germany ; he 
therefore declared its cultural work to be equivalent 
to that of the classical humanities. But his inter- 
vention did not get the mastery over tradition. 
The classical gymnasium, restored to itself, always 
defended and still defends its rank and privileges. 

At a time when the diplomas of its rivals open to 
youth the higher studies and the so-called liberal 
professions, but with restrictions and under cer- 
tain conditions, classical studies on the other hand 
lead up to everything without reserve of any kind 

— 91 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

or sort. The Universities, strongly riveted to the 
Government but autonomous enough in themselves, 
continue to protect the classical gymnasium against 
the oft-repeated and violent attacks of its rivals 
and of a certain section of public opinion. Bour- 
geois families, officials and the military obviously 
prefer the " gymnasium." The latter has even 
managed to maintain, in Prussia at least, its own 
" preparatory classes " to save its clientele from 
the mixing in the primary school, and from the 
inconvenience of passing from one mode of teach- 
ing to another. 

* * * 

Such was the state of things after the scholastic 
struggles of the end of the nineteenth century and 
up to the time of the war. The bulk of the army, 
the privates, are primary scholars. On January 
I, 1916, more than fifty thousand elementary 
teachers had been mobilized or had enlisted ; 
more than six thousand masters, and more than a 
fifth of the students of the training colleges and 
candidates had fallen.^ The privilege, not long 
before conferred on teachers, of performing their 
military service as volunteers for one year, had 
remained a dead letter ; few have been able to 
break through the barrier with which the entire 
body of officers hedges round its caste. In the 
present war teachers have only made good non- 
commissioned officers and good soldiers. On the 

^ See above, p. 39 
— 92 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

other hand the masters in secondary schools are all 
officers in the reserve ; the students having finished 
their military service of one year are at the least 
cadets ; and the pupils from the gymnasia and the 
non-classical secondary schools who have enlisted 
as volunteers, have been favoured with the certifi- 
cate which clears the way to the rank of volunteer 
and gives them the best chance of rising from the 
ranks without a hitch. 

Have the trenches brought together primary 
and secondary pupils to such a point as to put an 
end at last to the water-tight partitions between 
the two types of teaching ? Or have the secondary 
pupils justified, by their incapacity, or by their 
capacity, the universal distrust against the educa- 
tion which has shaped them ? 

Allusion will presently be made to a letter, writ- 
ten in the trenches by the head-master of a gymna- 
sium, containing such a sweeping condemnation of 
classical studies, his own department, that it pro- 
voked a storm of protests even outside the camp of 
the active partisans of Greek and Latin. Other 
members of the educational community may also 
have recorded their experiences while in the field. 
They will have drawn inferences on the reforms to 
be effected in the education of future generations 
and deduced certain social principles whose equality 
in the presence of duty, danger, or the election of 
leaders, etc., will have suggested to them the line 
to be followed in the future. 

--93 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

But we have reason to believe that the contro- 
versy on the " Unitaire " primary school was re- 
kindled by persons not at the Front. The vital 
importance of the struggle, the social phenomena 
taking place before their eyes, the anxieties which 
will face Germany after the war, and above all the 
steps taken by the Government profoundly to 
modify the existing organization of schools — all 
these circumstances were certainly more than 
enough to call into play the critical judgment of the 
pedagogues and politicians still living in their 
homes. The few comments from the Front of which 
we have any knowledge have been suggested to 
their authors by the perusal of the newspapers. We 
know that the " men in grey " at the Front have 

been overwhelmed with periodicals. 
* * * 

We have already seen that under cover of the 
Defence of the Realm the uniform military prepara- 
tion of young Germans has for its aim the central- 
ization of the empire founded upon the army. As 
the preponderating share is to be taken by the 
schools in this irresistible influence, was it not a 
unique occasion to attempt a radical remodelling 
of public education in Germany, in such a way 
that all the youth of the empire should hencefor- 
ward receive the same primary, fundamental and 
national education ? Such is the idea embodied 
in the Nationale Einheitsschule and of the Deutsche 
Grundschule. 

— 94 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

This idea of a primary school (in the strict sense 
of the word) unique and common to all children 
without distinction of social rank, is not new in 
Germany. For instance, this idea has been realized 
in Bavaria, under the name of the universal people's 
school {Allgemeine Volksschule). During the first 
four years of compulsory school life, all children, 
whether of Ministers of State or of workmen, are 
obliged to attend the public primary school, at all 
events in theory. It has not been proved that 
free education has profited by this to the detriment 
of the officially recognized schools. No injury has 
been caused either to the secondary or to the primary 
system, whether " middle " or " higher." 

The Einheitsschule tends to the same ends as the 
Allgemeine Volksschule but its object is more clearly 
defined. It is an equally ancient conception. It 
is the outcome of the conception of a homogeneous 
system merging into ' a single organism the divers 
orders of public education. To this homogeneous 
structure it is expedient to have a common ground- 
floor {einheitlicher Unterhau). Into this ground- 
floor all pupils would enter, and there they would 
sojourn ; some would return to ordinary life after 
a course of six, seven or eight years, and others 
would mount to the upper stories. But all the 
German states have not yet been able to construct 
a building thus arranged. The three orders have 
grown up independently of one another, sometimes 
even to their mutual detriment, so much so that 

— 95 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

attempts to draw them together have been brought 
up short by impassable partitions that nothing 
seems able to throw down. The uncompromising 
attitude of the academic parties sometimes verges 
upon open hostility. We have heard supporters 
of the primary system utter this party cry, " Primary 
education for primary scholars," and we have 
heard them insist on the self-government of all 
primary schools of whatever kind. Then again 
University professors have dared to describe as 
" barbarian hordes " those teachers who demanded 
the right to be prepared for their future functions 
in the Universities.^ 

At the present moment Prussia, the leading 
state of Germany, has not yet succeeded in passing 
the comprehensive organic law on public education 
as a whole, which had been prepared for more than 
a century and was regarded as the carrying out of 
the constitution. Is Prussia disposed at least to 
realize the partial progress that has been made in 
the direction by Saxony, Bavaria and the Duchy 
of Baden, among others, by declaring the compul- 
sory primary school common to all children ? 

Now, before the attainment of the organic unity 
of public education, admitting of close relations 
between the different orders and contriving natural 

^ See La preparation professionnelle des instituteurs dans 
les universites in La pedagogie dans les pays etrangers, by 
V. H. Friedel (Paris, published by G. Roustan, 1910 ; 

P- 134)- 

— 96 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

transitions, as it were, from one order to the other, 
an EinJieitsschule as foundation of the system is 
impossible. This rule applies to each of the Ger- 
man states taken individually. It is even more 
true that the realization of the deutsche Grund- 
schule, the fundamental and national school for the 
whole of the imperial confederation, can only be- 
long to the distant future. Should it ever become 
an accomplished fact, the present war would only 
mark the first stage of the reform movement. 

* * * 

Let us confine ourselves exclusively for the 
moment to the Einheitsschule. The question has 
two aspects. It is at the same time pedagogic and 
socio-political. But as pedagogy has no value 
except in so far as it studies and works for human 
society and politics, the two points of view become 
blended.^ 

The shrewdest among the pedagogues, such as 
W. Rein, who quite recently has broken another 
lance on behalf of the Einheitsschule, have been 
obliged to borrow their best weapons from the ar- 
senal of social and political demands. The object 
for which they are fighting is equal rights in respect 
of instruction and edtication. 'Every child has the 
right to be instructed and brought up according 

^ It would appear that the partisans of the Einheits- 
schtile have not always a very clear notion as to the object 
of their demands. 

— 97 — G 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

to his intellectual and moral abilities. It is " peda- 
gogically " unjust that some should only have at 
their disposal a small primary school, while the 
chances of fortune or of birth mark out others for 
more highly privileged schools. It is not true that 
town-bred children are more highly developed than 
village children, nor that the children of the rich 
are more healthy and of a higher moral calibre than 
those brought up in an industrial centre. On the 
contrary if this is really observed to be the case 
these apparent differences must be admitted to 
be the result of an unequal distribution of instruc- 
tion and education. 

It is the same with the difficulties experienced 
by even the capable masters in blending the differ- 
ent individualities of a class so as to make them 
produce good work in common, especially at the 
most important stage of their work, that is to say, 
the beginning. The weak indulgence as to the 
promotions from class to class, the delays caused 
to good pupils by the dunce that cannot be left 
behind, in a word, all the " pedagogic injustices " 
known to exist in the present organization — will 
not all these be lessened, if not entirely eliminated, 
when all children are taught together according to 
the same scheme and by the same methods before 
entering, some on ordinary life in the world, others 
into a school of a higher grade ? And as competi- 
tion and the natural esprit de corps of the children 
are of such powerful pedagogic value, more gener- 

-98- 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

ally satisfactory results can and ought to be obtained, 
especially when even the masters themselves feel 
encouraged by the thought that they are in truth 
the educators of all the nation. 

From the social point of view, this school which 
will be at once unique and general from the outset, 
will break down, we hope, the partitions separating 
the different classes of society, as it will likewise 
abolish those erected between the different kinds of 
education : it will carry on for ever, and for the 
greatest good of the country, the fusion that the 
war has effected in the trenches. After the blood- 
letting in the trenches, the country will be in need 
of all kinds of talents. It is of the first necessity 
that no one, however humble his origin, should ruin 
his destiny as the result of an insufficient or un- 
attainable initiation ; nor should the place of such 
a one be taken by wealthy or well-born incap- 
ables. 

It is with these arguments, which we have heard 
already, and to which the war has added an incon- 
testable value, that W. Rein and other pedagogues, 
both in theory and in practice, attempt to back up 
the demands of the Einheitsschule. They have on 
their side an imposing majority of the primary 
teaching staff. 

At the last congress of German teachers at Eisenach 
(Whitsuntide, 1916) the question of the Einheits- 
schule dominated the whole discussion. Herr Tews, 
one of the most active members of the Association 

— 90 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

of German Teachers, and one listened to with the 
utmost attention, had paved the way to this 
discussion by a pamphlet. 

The four hundred and seventy-six delegates, 
representing one hundred and twenty-eight thou- 
sand, four hundred and three teachers (50 per cent, 
had been mobilized) were invited to demand the 
unit aire school, in the first place, for " ideal " reasons, 
and in the second in order to satisfy professional and 
political interests. For a long time teachers have 
been complaining of the " preparatory classes," 
and other superfluous institutions which carry off 
the " good " pupils. In the new order of things 
which will follow the war, the functions of the 
teacher will be essentially important. They ought 
in future to direct their efforts to the setting up of 
the unitaire primary school to a still greater extent ; 
they ought to aim at an education of the empire, 
directed by an authority of the empire. This is, 
we see, the Einheitsschule acting as the bait of 
the unique and general, fundamental and German 
primary school of the centralized empire. 

The female teachers, met together at Hanover, 
stated their desires with more subtlety and less 
political mental reservation. They gave their 
assent to the report of one of their own body on the 
necessity of transforming the primary school into 
a school of the intelligence (BegabungsscJmle) . This 
is another way of justifying the institution of the 
common school by making it necessary to pick out 

— 100 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

and encourage the most highly gifted children of 

the lower classes. 

* * * 

This then is the theory. It is a seductive one 
by reason of the generous and humane liberalism 
which inspires it. How will it be in practice ? 

The school medical officers, who in Germany 
examine each child on its entering school and during 
its school life, have corroborated a discovery which 
has long been the despair of all conscientious mas- 
ters, namely, that all children are not equally fitted, 
either physically or intellectually, to keep up with 
the normal programme of the class to which their 
age assigns them. The causes of this unfitness are 
many, and the child itself has no control over them 
(heredity, social sphere, etc.). It produces re- 
sults from which the child is the first to suffer 
(overwork, loss of time, classes to be gone through 
again, despondency, etc.). So a uniform and com- 
pulsory education for the whole scholastic contin- 
gent is therefore a pedagogic absurdity. 

If the syllabus is kept at a level to suit the aver- 
age child, a thing not always easy to bring about, 
one runs the risk of injuring the more gifted chil- 
dren whose upward impetus is paralysed. Only 
those of middling powers are being catered for. 
The least capable are certain to be failures. Ulti- 
mately it is society that loses. Society does not 
get out of the rising generations all the powers 
there lying dormant. On the other hand it sees 

— lOI — 



TH£ GERMAN SCHOOL 

on an increasing scale the loss caused by the social 
non-productiveness of a large number of indivi- 
duals who, with pains and care adapted to their 
natural temperament, might have been able to 
play their parts on the stage of life as " common 
useful actors." 

It is in order to obtain in pedagogy more phy- 
siological and social desiderata that round the 
primary school have been created, on the one hand, 
classes for abnormal and backward children who 
have not been able to keep up the pace, and on the 
other hand preparatory classes for higher instruc- 
tion. 

A most interesting experiment for the rational 
grouping of these chapels of ease within the national 
and free primary schools has been made by the 
town of Mannheim. Herr W. Rein has instanced 
the experiments of this city as an example of a 
unitairc primary school. It is as follows. 

At the age of six all children whose parents wish 
to make use of the public free primary school are 
registered for the first of the eight ordinary or nor- 
mal classes. Already at the end of the first year 
a selection is made. The children in permanent 
need of instruction specially adapted to them will 
have been noted. They are placed in the classes 
known as " auxiliary " (Hilfsklassen), which are 
classes not of abnormals, but rather of the back- 
ward children. Teaching in them is confined to 
four grades. It only includes subjects within the 

— 102 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

capacity of these, " minus habentes," who are 
improvable to a degree which will he useful in their 
future way of life. Little theory but much handwork 
and practical work is taught ; general work is 
reduced. 

The children easily improvable by a temporary 
treatment have also been picked out. For these 
Forderklassen have been organized, that is to 
say, finishing classes, equal to the normal classes^ 
beginning from the second year and consequently 
graduated so as to represent six or seven stages. 
They are provided for children who by reason of 
illness, lassitude or any other fortuitous cause have 
momentarily been left behind. 

Finally, children looked upon as normal follow 
the ordinary syllabus in the classes constituting 
the groundw^ork of the system. 

In this system we merely see the rational adapta- 
tion of so-called parallel classes, which are found 
necessary in all over-populated scholastic groups. 
It is an understood thing that the auxiliary classes 
[Hilfsklassen) , with their special syllabus, their 
short duration and their special staff can have less 
interchange with the finishing classes than the 
latter have with the normal classes. A " back- 
ward " child does not go through his classes over 
again with children younger than himself ; this 
would often discourage him and prevent him from 
making up for lost time. He passes for a time into 
the finishing class corresponding with his age and 

— 103 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

rejoins his comrades of the normal grade as soon 
as he has made good his losses. 

In this manner the waste proved to exist in the 
cut and dried organization of education in common 
is reduced to a minimum, and the pupils give the 
maximum of work of which they are capable. 

On the other hand, really gifted and capable 
children, who can advance further than the ordin- 
ary stage, are not riveted irretrievably to the nor- 
mal syllabus. For the advantage of those whose 
parents mean to send them to a secondary school, 
or who seem likely subjects for encouragement to 
enter such a school, supplementary classes of 
" preparation " have been organized. This pre- 
paration holds out to them the prospect of pre- 
senting themselves at the regulation age of nine 
for the examination of admission to any classical 
gymnasium or semi-classical school. With this 
end in view the preparation will have brought the 
child up to the standard required in the sixth class 
of those establishments. In Baden, this type of 
school has long been without preparatory classes. 
The heads of secondary establishments have, it 
seems, given a welcome to pupils thus prepared 
by teachers. 

In like manner, there have been grafted on to the 
primary classes during their last two years courses 
of modern languages, commercial drawing and 
manual labour, for the benefit of children who 
show particular aptitude for any of these special 

— 104 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

subjects and who desire to acquire them in view 
of their future walk in hfe. 

It is to be observed that the classing of the chil- 
dren's inteUigences is made in a very natural manner, 
according to the work and power of the children 
and never without parental consent. The latter 
are always consulted when the teachers are anxious 
to put a child into one of the classes outside the 
normal syllabus. The masters do not encroach 
upon the rights of the family ; they are merely their 
advisers. 

What has been attempted at Mannheim ^ is 
the experiment of a system of free and universal 
primary schools, where pupils and parents, without 
distinction of social rank, may find what they 
require and what suits them ; i.e. a school con- 
structed organically to suit the needs of an intel- 
lectual, moral and physical pedagogy, and grouping 
around a normal nucleus accessories which will be 
helpful to the weak and useful to rising talent ; 
in short, a school in accordance with nature, with 
reason and with justice, and one which is at the 
same time the real and unique basis of already 
existing higher instruction. 



1 Dr. Sickinger has published for the Society of Teachers 
at Mannheim a small treatise on " the rational organization 
of primary schools in the large towns, in particular at Mann- 
heim." He has reproduced the general outhnes of his 
treatise in the Vossische Zeitung, May 7, 191 5 (4th supple- 
ment ) . 

— 105 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

All this, object the adversaries of the unitaire 
school, is pure idealogy to which there is no indis- 
putable answering reality, either present or future, 
either in pedagogy or in political or social life. The 
experiments are far from being conclusive, it will 
be impossible to generalize from them. 

The more the teachers defend the primary school 
" of their dreams " because they hope it will 
return to them, not only a better class of pupil, 
but also the rank which they consider themselves 
entitled to hold in society, the more the teachers of 
secondary education fight against them. The for- 
mer cling to their elementary preparatory classes,^ 
elementary, no doubt, but not " popular," differ- 
ing in substance and method from the Volksschule, 
and organized for more highly developed children 
than the children of the working classes,^ whatever 
may be said to the contrary. Above all, let no one 
dream of infringing on their own " higher " domain ! 
To wish to unite the secondary to the primary would 
be to lower the one without raising the other. 
Primary teachers are going too far in claiming to 

^ The communication made at the forty-third annual meet- 
ing of the Philological Society of Berlin by Dr. Hubatsch, 
director of the semi-classical gymnasium Schiller of Char- 
lottenburg, in order to refute the dissertations of the par- 
tizans of the Einheitsschule, gives the prevailing tone in 
the secondary centres {Tdgliche Rundschau, January 3. 
1 916). 

2 The statements and the statistics of the director. Dr. 
Hubatsch, cannot explain away this characteristic of the 
e ementary classes. 

— 106 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

be able to determine whether any given pupils 
of theirs possess the ripeness necessary for passing 
into a gymnasium. It has fearlessly been affirmed, 
that the unitaire primary school, as organized, 
for instance, by Dr. Kerschensteiner at Munich, has 
given " anything but cheering " results. In virtue 
of an axiom extremely typical of satisfied conserva- 
tive minds, a school's duty is to adapt itself to 
existing social conditions and by no means to create 
new ones. Politicians claim that not only the 
unitaire school will not do away with social 
differences, but that it is even in the interest of the 
social classes themselves, each to evolve according 
to its own nature. 

Professor Dr. J. F. Schmidt, titulary of the chair 
of pedagogy in the University of Berlin, has opposed 
Herr Rein with more serious arguments.^ Like his 
colleague of Jena, he acknowledges the need of at 
last bringing about the complete union of the divers 
orders of education. But he sees a real danger in 
the general unitaire primary school, which would 
form the foundation of it. Such a school would 
be in reality a " teaching " school (Gleichheitsschule). 
Now, real unity, the only indispensable unity, rests 
upon the national education of future citizens. This 
education does not require for its groundwork a 

^ In a lecture given to the Comenius Gesellschaft on 
February 25, on the problem of the national Einheitsschule 
{Vossische Zeitung, February 26, 1916), and in a, feuilleton 
of the same paper of March 23, 1916. 

— 107 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

unique primary school of instruction. We must 
not confound education which is moral and social 
with instruction which develops individual powers. 
If the latter, in its most elementary stages, is made 
uniform, and equal for all children, we are creating 
a fictitious and temporary unity, which would be 
as injurious to the primary school itself as to the 
whole body of public education. Once the higher 
grades are reached, the breaking up w^ould become 
apparent and confusion would follow. Who would 
think of depriving secondary education of its liberty 
and of its real character by building it up on the 
necessarily summary foundations of levelling 
primary education ? 

For in adapting itself to every understanding, 
such instruction could not be permitted to pass 
beyond a certain minimum level. In the name of 
a social postulate, illusory enough it is true, one 
would destroy, on the one hand, the present rich 
bloom of primary education, both middle and 
higher, and on the other hand, secondary education 
would be forced for the future to restrain its require- 
ments in order to adjust itself to a primary mini- 
mum ! Most assuredly every one recognizes the 
imperious necessity, both patriotic and national, 
of not letting any intellectual force be lost by the 
untowardness of circumstances. But we must 
take care not to fall into the other extreme, and not 
to rear up a " mass of intellectuals with water on 
the brain," by compelling all gifted schoolboys to 

— io8 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

become students. This is what would happen if 
masters of leveUing schools were called upon to 
appraise the talents of their " good pupils," without 
taking into account that they would be encroaching 
on the rights of the parents. 

Then there is a further danger. The most in- 
telligent members of the working classes would be 
lost to them. Parents are so ambitious for their 
little ones and masters so ready to oblige ! Have 
we then still to learn that the " brilliant scholars '* 
do not always fulfil in after life what they seemed 
to promise at school ? The unitaire and levelling 
school would soon become a nursery for nonde- 
scripts ; persons who have stepped out of their 
social class. 

On the whole, Herr Schmidt, who is nearer the 
court than Herr Rein, and who does not appear to 
be in favour of the experiments made in South 
Germany, all the same desires the unity of the 
school, but it is to be an interior and organic unity, 
not based on a scheme, and which would include 
all public education, while leaving to each order 
its own individuality and its freedom to develop. 
The tie which would bind them cannot and ought 
not to be instruction of intellectual faculties, but 
education " by ethics and tending towards the 
ideal of the German nation." Schools ought all 
to be Bildmtgsschtden, that is to say, establishments 
for education and culture. It is the interest of the 
State, an interest over-riding every other, to 

— 109 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

give all the help possible to children not favoured by 

fortune, but able to offer moral surety in return for 

what is offered to them. These are the children 

whom the State must aid to make their way un- 

shackled. 

* * * 

It will not be necessary to supplement the opin- 
ions of Herr Rein and Herr Schmidt by recording 
the ways of thinking of less important lights ; to 
the arguments of such men as Rein, Kerschensteiner, 
Natorp (of Marburg), Brahn (of Leipzig) and 
Schmidt they have only added remarks dictated 
by a pugnacious self-interest which could never influ- 
ence the decision of the Government. For anyone 
familiar with Prussia, the nature of this decision 
could not be in doubt for one minute. The Ein- 
heitsschule has no chance of succeeding in any shape 
or form. For the Administration the results of 
the reform would in reality, be more political than 
pedagogic. Ever since 1848 the Liberals, the Demo- 
crats and Socialists of Germany have cried up a 
reform of this kind as a means of closer social 
connexion. The southern and central states have 
made some concessions. Prussia remains stubborn. 
At the sitting of the Chamber of Prussian represen- 
tatives of March 16, 1916, the Socialist deputy 
Hoffman energetically pleaded the cause of the 
free, neuter, unitaire primary school. As may well 
be imagined, he claimed the establishment of such 
a school as a mark of gratitude for the enormous 

— no — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

sacrifices made by the working classes during the 
present war. Outside his own party, he met with 
nothing but sarcasm and distrust. The SociaHst 
motion was rejected. " The Moor has done his 
duty, the Moor can go," he said bitterly, with 
Schiller, to define the attitude of the prevailing 
body towards patriotic Socialists. 

H: 4! H: 

As to the reforms which fuse into one organic 
and pedagogic system all orders of pubHc educa- 
tion, it has already been pointed out that Prussia 
has been waiting for them for a century. The 
King of Prussia who called Germany to arms against 
Napoleon had no time to sanction the plan worked 
out by G. von Humboldt and Siivern, in accordance 
with the ideas of the great thinkers and pedagogues 
of the eighteenth century. Wilhelm II, King of 
Prussia and Emperor of Germany, will have other 
things to think of after "his big war" than to 
accomplish a reform to bring about which the con- 
scious friends and foes of the iinitaire school and the 
sincere politicians of nearly all parties have united 
together at a moment of dire patriotic distress. 

^ ^ Hi 

Will nothing then remain of the stir created round 
the Einheitsschule ? Must teachers give up for 
lost " the greatest of school reforms " (according 
to them) which would " open the w^ay " for talent, 
and which would make it possible to extract from 
the nation the living forces which she needs in order 

— Ill — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

to compensate for the flower of the citizens 
swallowed up by the war ? 

Germany and Prussia pretend " to have learnt " 
by this war how much " strength " lay concealed 
in the " people." Pedagogues and politicians call 
upon the Government to let them strike out freely, 
and to open the road to careers and offices to such 
of the disinherited as are capable of entering upon 
them. The Emperor or his Chancellor have re- 
peatedly shown themselves inclined to help. But 
the Administration does not recognize things done 
on impulse. Who will make the selection ? How 
can the chosen few be assisted to " break through " ? 
By means of what precautions can the overcrowding 
of higher studies be avoided : how provide against 
the forsaking of mechanical trades and the confu- 
sion of classes, etc. ? And in another order of 
ideas, what do those think, who up to now have 
been the heati possidentes of privileges ? 

In March, 1916, the Prussian Minister allowed 
these questions to be discussed in full in the Press 
and in the Chamber of Deputies, and he promised 
to think them over. He made it known that al- 
ready, according to law, 10 per cent, of the pupils 
in secondary establishments had been relieved of 
the costs of study, and that since the war this pro- 
portion had been exceeded. In its own interest, he 
added, the State is giving up more than three and a 
half million marks in school fees. In addition there 
are numerous scholarships, which are not given 

— 112 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

away " like alms." Pedagogues who are well- 
informed are less optimistic in their views. Too 
many of these scholarships are either bestowed by 
favour, or else they are of no intrinsic worth. The 
well-known Berlin pedagogue, Adolf Mathias, has 
asked in strong terms that the scholarships for study, 
endowment, etc., should be centralized and that 
their distribution should be equitably organized. ^ 
They must be bestowed on merit alone, they must 
be sufficing, and prolonged until their object is 
attained, and they must be pitilessly denied to those 
who deteriorate in the course of their schooling. 

As to the facilities for transition from the primary 
to the secondary school, the Liberal journals have 
announced ^ that the Minister has decided to 
abolish the entrance examination to the secondary 
sixth for pupils not coming from the preparatory 

^ Berliner Tageblatt, February 17, 1916 (2nd supplement). 
Zum Thema : Entwurzelte Jugend. 

2 Vossische Zeitung, June 6, 1916. Dey Aufstieg der 
Volksschuler (ist supplement). Berliner Tageblatt, June 
27, 1 916. S chul p otitis oh er Fortschritt, by Dr. Max Brahn, 
of Leipzig. Ibid., July 11, 1916. Aufstiegswege fur be- 
gabte Berliner Gemeindeschulkindery by the municipal in- 
spector Dr. L. H. Fischer, This functionary proposes 
either to organize preparatory classes side by side with the 
communal schools, in view of the secondary schools, or 
to join the latter to the semi-classical schools of the town, 
or, in fine, to create special secondary schools for pupils 
leaving the primary schools. For girls the upward move- 
ment would be more awkward to manage. Herr Fischer's 
schemes would only bring the children of the lower classes 
to the semi-classical or normal schools. 

— 113 — H 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

classes, and to authorize primary pupils declared 
to be qualified by their headmaster and their in- 
spector, to enter it after their third primary year 
without further formality. The one reservation is 
that they may be sent back to the primary school 
should they prove to be insufficiently prepared to 
hold their own in the secondary school. On the 
other hand the primary " preparatory classes " 
would be invited to place their sj^Habus on the same 
level with the popular primary classes. These 
gentle means would lead, it is thought, to their 
disappearance through want of nourishment.^ In 
other respects nothing is changed in the statu quo. 
But it seems that the Liberal papers have begun to 
rejoice too soon.^ 

The Tdgliche Rundschau ^ whose reactionary 
spirit is well known, announces, in fact, that " well- 
informed circles " were unaware that such a decree 
was being formulated. Of course the Minister would 
not waste his time in bringing to light a decision of 
1837 ( ! ) regulating the admission into the sixth 
class of the gymnasia : he desires " to make the 

1 " The idea of suppressing the preparatory classes, and 
of forbidding the creation of private schools to take their 
places, in order to force all parents to send their cliildren 
to the pubhc primary school, and thus open to all social 
strata the entrance to higher schools, meets with obstacles 
which it would be difficult to overcome." Commencement 
of the article by Herr Fischer quoted above. 

2 " Ein schulpolitisches Meisterstiick, says the Radical 
Berliner Tagehlatt. 

8 July 6, 1 916. 

— 114 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

terms of admission more uniform so that they 
would fit in with the present syllabus of the secondary 
schools. For there would be considerable diffi- 
culty in uniting the primary school to the secondary." 
To begin with, the diversity of the primary schools 
themselves would be an obstacle. There are in fact 
some who spread their syllabus over periods of six, 
seven or eight years, whence the irregularity of the 
standard of teaching after the third year. 

We do not know if the partisans of this little 
reform are taking their wishes for realities. One 
thing is certain ; the ministerial decision will not 
make any great change. It will scarcely prove to 
be more than one of those makeshifts, " which are 
at the bottom of all German school organization.'' 
Doubts have already been expressed as to the 
" selection " of the beneficiaries created by this 
measure ^. 

The German pedagogues are not acquainted with 
the system of competitive examinations in force 
in Latin countries, and they do know how ticklish 
a proceeding election is. An admirer of Fichte 
has invented a whole order of things which is here 
summarized as being a curiosity. ^ " We shall begin 
by checking the mortality among infants. We 

^ Dr. Max Brahn, among others, in the article quoted 
from the Berliner Tagehlatt. 

2 Fehx, Baron von Stenglin, in the Vossische Zeitung 
of September 21. The article is entitled Deutsche Erzie- 
himg (German education). 

— 115 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

shall diminish degeneracy and depravity. Healthy 
children, both boys and girls, will be brought up to 
be efficient {Tuchtig) in every way. The idea of 
' one year's service ' for women is quite feasible.^ 
The boys will all be taught in the same popular 
school, or at all events in accordance with a common 
syllabus which on principle allows them all to pass 
into higher schools. Every year a selection of the 
most highly gifted will be made. Poor but promis- 
ing subjects ought to have it in their power ' to 
attain to higher work,' provided they come of 
honourable parentage. ' ' The State, who needs them , 
will bear the expenses of their education and their 
keep, in boarding houses specially provided, and 
till the time when they are nominated to some 
public employment. The State will even make 
compensation to the parents for the loss of what 
their children might have earned since their four- 
teenth year. Naturally the number of the chosen 
few will be limited, in order to avoid overcrowding, 
confusion of classes and impoverishment of intel- 
lect in the working classes. Rich dunces must 
likewise be cast back into the masses, where they 
will " become regenerated." And thus " in quicken- 
ing active relations between the different social 
classes," the exhausted stock will recover new sap. 
" Heroism, the spirit of sacrifice and of modern 

^ The Press of 191 5-1 916 has devoted many articles 
to this subject of martial womanhood. See below, Chap- 
ter VII. 

— 116 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

organization have revealed a ' strength ' which 
must absolutely be perpetuated and increased : after 
1914-1915 there is no future for Germany without 
further progress." 

The author of this dream future for Germany 
knows that the main conception of his system is 
taken from the French Revolution. The coun- 
sels of Fichte were not listened to. For the 
nineteenth century has only brought to Germany 
a partial realization of the schemes of the 
patriot philosopher. Baron von Stenglin would 
like the subject to be re-approached " with 
method," i.e. by creating " favourable conditions " ; 
for he has " faith in an unsuspected power of 
imitation " on the part of Germany if only she 
can *' unchain her forces."^ 

A politician of note, von Zedhtz, and Neukirch, 
leader of an important fraction of the Conservatives 
of Prussia, considers a selection possible, but always 
on the condition that it should be most severe and 
that it should only admit to higher studies poor 
but exceptionally gifted children. But he foresees 
a strong opposition on the part of the drones — by 
which you are to understand the sons of the rich 
and of people of standing, who would not like to 
be dispossessed of " their " professions and forced 
to take up others not so much looked up to.^ 

^ Berliner Tagehlatt, June 12, 1915 (abstract of an article 
by von Zedlitz in the Post). 

2 In Germany a man is taxed socially, according to his 

— 117 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

Herr von Zedlitz knows the forces of prejudice 
among his own party. He is so imbued with them 
himself, in spite of his apparent concessions, that 
he makes an exception of " officers " in his scheme 
of the emancipation of the less fortunate. This 
reservation, as also the precautions recommended 
for the selection, are significant. Officers and wards 
of the State would form a staff that no social de- 
mocracy could break up. Men capable of thinking 
would be subject to a servitude even more complete 

than it is at present. 

* * * 

In our opinion it is an outsider who has struck 
the right chord in the discussion about the Ein- 
heitsschule and the ministerial promise relating to 
the facihties hencefor^vard to be granted to talent. 
At the same time this writer expresses his regret 
that no one has thought of professional and artistic 
careers. ^ 

" That is all as it should be. It is the principle 

birth, and for some time according to his fortune, his 
pubUc functions and according to his " academical " titles. 
Aristocracy of nobility and fortune ; officialdom ; certifi- 
cated intellectualism. We hope that after the war 
"personal worth " will become the determining factor in 
the " selection " of the social elite. Die soziale Wertung 
der Berufe (The appreciation of professions from a social 
point of view), by Professor Dr. Eulenburg (of Leipzig), Ber- 
liner Tagehlatt, June lO, 1916 (2nd supplement). 

^ Fritz Stahl, Von der Werkstall zur A kademie (From the 
Workshop to the University), in the Berliner Tagehlatt, 
July 2, 1 916. 

— 118 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

and so far the unique result produced by the grand 
sentiment of community in the first stages of the 
war. All partitions separating Germans from Ger- 
mans had to fall, just as in the army there were to 
be no longer parties nor rank. Since then, the daily 
routine has reasserted its rights, and we must see 
how many or how few of these flowers of fancy 
will reach maturity. 

The beautiful idea of unity in education is perhaps 
better as an idea than as a reality. In any case it is 
very difficult to realize, perhaps even impossible. 
The one essential is doubtless that the gifted child 
should have a free path, and that the barrier of 
social class and of poverty should not make the 
" ascension " impossible. In this way life mil 
open in a widely different manner before the child 
of the lower classes. Everything depends on the 
free and humane putting into execution of the 

measures taken for his welfare. 

* * * 

In truth, the measures taken by the Administra- 
tion, if at all resembling what was announced by 
the Radical press, will be all that is left of the latest 
pedagogic and political joust for the tmitaire school. 

Prussia is not yet ready to become Liberal. 



119 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 



CHAPTER V 
The War and Humanistic Studies 

HOW is it that in Germany, from the very first 
months of the war, the " higher " (i.e. the 
secondary) schools, and especially the " classical 
gymnasia," have been attacked with a violence and 
an animosity hitherto unknown in the scholastic 
conflicts ? Headmasters and teachers, ^ students 
at the Universities, 2 collegians of the higher classes ^ 

^ There is hardly any difference between the gymnasia 
and the non-classical secondary schools as regards the 
number of teachers who have been mobilized. One hun- 
dred and eighteen masters have gone from the non-classical 
secondary school of Konigstadt in Berhn : ninety-four 
have gone from the Ascanien gymnasium ; eighty from the 
Helmholtz classical secondary school. In Berhn the per- 
centage varies from thirty to fifty-eight. We have not 
sufficient data to enable us to determine the exact share 
of the classical gymnasia and the non-classical or semi- 
classical schools of the provinces {Vossische Zeitung, 
June 20, 1 915. Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, April 4, 1915). 
Frankfurter Zeitung, September 14, 1915-1916 40 per cent. 

2 See above, p. 39 note i, The number of students 
who have enlisted is 56,000. 

^ According to sixty annual reports relating to Berlin 
and the neighbourhood, it is supposed that on an average 
30 per cent, of the students between the third superior 

— 120 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

had hastened to join the army as officers, non- 
commissioned officers in the reserve, or as simple 
volunteers. It was said that there were enough of 
them to form several army corps. 

No grievance had been formulated against them — 
indeed the contrary was rather the case. Whence 
then this sudden furious craving to " overturn 
completely '' the type of school which had produced 
them ? This is a question which must have sug- 
gested itself to the readers of the leading German 
newspapers when they had read the war news and 
passed on to the other intelligence supplied by their 
paper. 

Wilhelm II flattered himself on having estab- 
lished a modus vivendi between " the Ancients and 
the Moderns." On two occasions he convoked 
them to a conference at Berlin in order that they 
might settle their differences. A Rescript, which he 
signed on board one of his warships in 1900, 
announced that " as far as the culture of the intellect 
was concerned," the classical gymnasia and the non- 
classical secondary schools were of an equal effi- 
ciency. Each type of school was thenceforward to 
develop on its own lines and to put every effort into 
the task of producing loyal and useful citizens for the 
Empire. 

class and the first superior class have enlisted ; that is to 
say those belonging to the five highest classes of the second- 
ary schools {Vossische Zeittmg, June 20, 1915). In many 
cases the first class is entirely without pupils. 

— 121 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

This compromise robbed the classical gymnasium 
of none of its privileges. It is now, as in the past, 
the gate to every career. It can count on the protec- 
tion of the Universities and the favour of the upper 
classes as well as of all right-minded people. This 
regard may even have been increased by the " perse- 
cution " to which it has been subjected. The 
non-classical secondary schools have likewise pros- 
pered, thanks to the industry and commerce of the 
country which they keep supplied with an army of 
active and well-discipHned servants. Their ambi- 
tions were however combated by too formidable a 
number of prejudices. They also desired to see their 
pupils able to hold posts under Government without 
needing further qualifications. Their demands grew 
in exact proportion to the growth of the material 
forces of the Empire ; and when the government of 
Berlin gave the sign for the general upheaval, not 
even the commands of the master furnished a reason 
for further restraint. 

The dispute is one which could have been put off 
till the end of the war. A few " heroes of the rod," 
touched by the " devastating madness " of the 
"brave warriors "^ at the front, might have been 
allowed to brawl, and little harm would have ensued 
from the agitations of professional innovators who 
were anxious to find an opening for hitherto unsuc- 
cessful reforms. But as it was, confusion reigned in 

^ The words between inverted commas have been bor- 
rowed from the German pohtical documents. 

— . ~ no 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

every department of national education before the 
war was many weeks old. Prussia was especially 
affected because her organization is especially finick- 
ing and hide-bound. In order to avoid closing the 
schools, the Administration went to the length of 
putting women in the places of the masters who had 
been mobilized. This was even done in the secondary 
schools.^ Such a thing had never been seen before 
in Germany. Public opinion took alarm at the 
increase in juvenile crime, with the natural conse- 
quence that the nation, being in a state of nerves, 
began to call the educative value of the schools into 
question. Persons well qualified to speak gave 
agonized expression to their fears for the future of 
the race and of the Fatherland. The excitement 
aroused by the war rekindled political passion in 
spite of the truce in the strife of parties which, like 
so many other things, had been ordered by the 
Emperor in his first call to the nation. The peda- 
gogues, who are usually a peaceful and well disci- 
plined race, were among the first to be carried away. 
The military authorities had called up the young 
men and pointed out to the educational authorities 
that the duty of inaugurating the mihtary training 
of schoolboys lay with them. From the outset, a 
whole afternoon of the scholastic week had to be 

^ Frankfurter Zeitung, September 14, 1915. Berliner 
Tagehlatt, October 15, 1915. Frauen in Berliner Gymna- 
sien, Vossische Zeitung, December 5, 1915. Die Lehrer- 
Kollegien im Krleg, by Prof. Dr. Hildebrandt. 

— 123 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

devoted to this intruding " subject " which received 
support from high-placed personages and enjoyed at 
the same time the favour of the populace. Of course 
it went without saying that the subjects to be cut 
out of the programme were the " useless " ones, 
those which were mere " luxuries," those which 
were dubbed " ideal " or considered to be " too far 
removed from the national needs of the moment/' 
This constituted a direct attack on the classical 
humanities. 

" In his trench, amid the thunder of the guns," 
the headmaster of a gymnasium suddenly felt himself 
drawn to demolish the antiquated institution over 
which he had once presided, and he drew up a new 
plan in conformity with " the great German actual- 
ity." Here we see, no doubt, the example of 
Louvain. His letter appeared in an educational 
review which is regarded, rightly or wrongly, as the 
mouthpiece of the Administration.^ A colleague 
echoed his sentiments in a somewhat louder strain 
in an equally reputable daily paper. ^ 

According to these wild reformers secondary 
education is nothing but " superfetation " and " in- 
coherence," a wretched forcing down of the intellect, 

1 Monatsschrift fur hdhere Sohulen. 

2 The author owes this information to an article by 
Oberlehrer Dr. Rommel, entitled Das Gymnasium eine 
Ruine ? and published in the Vossische Zeitung for October 
3, 1 915. Dr. Rommel alludes to the articles entitled 
Unsere jungen Griechen und Romer which appeared in the 
Kolnische Zeitung, Nos. 371 and 451 (1915). 

— 124 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

cursed by pupils and parents alike." As for the 
classical gymnasium, all that can be said of it is that 
it is " a crumbling ruin, patched up here and there, 
having long outlived its usefulness. It is in fact an 
anachronism." It must be " swept away " and 
replaced by some really German institution which 
will " be able to supply the needs of the present 
day." This might be some kind of " school of non- 
commissioned officers and teachers of gymnastics, 
without Latin, Greek, or foreign languages, and 
teaching nothing except an immense amount of 

physical culture flavoured with a little science." 
* * * 

One can imagine the effect produced by sallies 
of this kind on the general public just when their 
heads were being turned by the " technical " 
successes of the " brave " armies. In the Radical 
Berliner TageUatt ^ one of its regular collaborators, 
Fritz Mauthner, dwelt with a certain raciness on 
the supposed common sense of the man in the street. 
How many subjects he has been forced to study 
during a lamentable number of years which might 
have formed the best period of his youth ! And 
how tiresome, useless and even false were these 
subjects, which were as quickly forgotten as they 

^ October 7, 191 5. On January 26, 1916, the same 
paper published a similar article by Paul Harms, entitled 
Die Schule nach dem Kriege. " The sole function of the 
school is to train citizens who will be useful to the German 
Empire : this may well be done without Greek or Latin." 

— 125 -- 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

were painfully learnt. Like Wilhelm H, Mauthner 
has no very comforting recollection of the " cram- 
ming establishment " : " Pity for the little ones ! 
listen to Montaigne, Rousseau, Fichte and Pestalozzi. 
Have done with classical antiquity, with history, 
or rather with ' stories,' scrap collections of ridicu- 
lous legends and non-proven facts which do not 
interest young people. The classical gymnasium 
has had its day. It has rendered great services in 
the past but it is now decaying. The world has 
gone ahead, and the realities of the moment have 
an imperious claim on us. Children are the future 
of the people, and the schools are the future of this 
future. Let the State authorize the teachers to 
bring up happy children in a common school ; to 
teach things and not words ; to exercise a prudent 
justice which will make the attainment of a higher 
degree of learning or of a responsible position depend 
entirely on natural gifts, without fearing that the 
son of a day-labourer may become an attache at an 
embassy. The State must not have the right to 
make examinations in Greek and Latin the test of a 
man's ability to fill a public ofhce." 

From his bed in hospital, Franz Werfel, a young 
poet wounded in the war, made answer " with 
passion " to the facile " sarcasms " of this " free 
thinker "^ He also endured " the vexations and the 

^ On October 27, 1915, the Tageblatt inserted the reply, 
but^; merely out of deference, and without endorsing the 
poet's opinions. 

— 126 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

tortures " of the classical school for nine years. 
'' The details of the things taught have vanished, but 
the synthesis has remained." Do people, he asks, 
wish to " americanize " the brains of the young, 
*' to dry up their dreams, and to turn boys of fifteen 
into makers of machinery, into dentists, or into 
surgeons ? " What is needed is a cure for the 
" immense psychological innocence of educators 
which might be better described as their ignorance 
of the rising generation and their inability to train 
it." 

The journalist has politely made his bow to this 
generous idealism. His only protest has been to 
disclaim all desire to preach a basely utilitarian 
" pragmatism." But he knows that at this time of 
patriotic enthusiasm he has on his side the world of 
business, practical politicians, and nationalist peda- 
gogues. 

One of the latter ^ relates, with righteous indigna- 
tion, that he heard an engineer and a chemist, both 
Germans, hope for the end of the war " in order 
that they might live in comfortable and easy circum- 
stances and draw a large salary. The first hoped to 
achieve this by returning to the factories of Poutilow, 
and the other by going back to England." "It is 
necessary for the good of the Vaterland and of the 
countries which will form with it the future " Mid- 

^ Kdlnische Zeitung, July 17, 1915 : Staatsburgerliche 
Aufgaben der hdheren. Schulen, by Fr. Hahn, Oberlehrer at 
the Gymnasium at Miilheim on the Rhine. 

— 127 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

European Union/' that German citizens shall be 
taught and educated in a purely German fashion. 
Such at any rate must be the procedure if the object 
is to produce a civic spirit which will make it from 
henceforth impossible for Russia to hold sixty 
million roubles' worth of bonds in Germany, as was 
the case in 1913. Finally, it is time that German 
civic teaching should become the pivot on which all 
the teaching in " superior " schools, and even in the 
Universities, turns, so that no German can again 
become a traitor to his country by working abroad for 
its enemies.^ 



The readiness with which these attacks were 
echoed by public opinion terrified the Friends of the 
Classical Gymnasium, an association of philologists 
which receives powerful support from former pupils 
already high up in the world of science or the 
Administration. 

They protested in the following terms : 

"It is true that the war has borne irrefutable 

testimony to the moral and intellectual forces of the 

German nation w^hich it is the duty of the German 

school to preserve and to increase. It is however 

1 It is well known that the German Government has 
reminded all Germans, and especially those in America, 
that they will be guilty of high treason if they work in the 
munition factories or in any others which are supplying 
the Allies. 

— 128 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

equally certain that these forces which have been 
cultivated for centuries, are based, in part at least, 
on the culture of the Ancients. It is especially the 
fruitful afflux of antique thought which, together 
with Christianity, has produced what is known 
to-day as ' the German way ' {deutsche Art). The 
value of the classical gymnasium lies in the fact that 
it is a place where this thought is cultivated. The 
abolition or the curtailment of the gymnasium at a 
time when the greatest of national events is taking 
place would only be justifiable if the young men it 
has sent out to fight had proved themselves inferior 
physically, morally, intellectually or perhaps patriot- 
ically, and if the educative treasures of antiquity 
could be replaced by others. 

''The opponents of the gymnasium have not yet 
proved this to be the case and will soon be forced to 
give up all idea of ever doing so. The supreme 
stake of the present war is the national culture of 
Germany, which owes its particular character to the 
cult of Antiquity. He who seeks to diminish or 
destroy the gymnasium is depriving our culture of 
one of the essential conditions of its existence. In 
common with everything which has become a 
reality in history, the gymnasium is subject to the 
law of evolution. In the future, as in the past, it will 
therefore remain susceptible to new experiences 
(Erkenntnisse) and to fresh needs as they arise. For 
instance, the recent ministerial order relative to the 
reorganization of the teaching of history was hailed 

— 129 — I 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

by it with enthusiasm. But its essential character, 
namely, the return to the ancient sources of our 
culture, must certainly be preserved if our nation is 
not to be debarred from the understanding of its 
past and its present. 

The Friends of the Classical Gymnasium further 
declare, with perfect impartiality, that they give 
unreserved recognition to the three types of 
secondary schools ; they will not raise their hand 
against them and in no way desire others to do so." 

The protest is a dignified one, but the embarrassed 
and at the same time conciliatory tone adopted 
reveals only too plainly that the authors felt a 
poignant anxiety. They realized that the moment 
and the object of the attack were equally serious.^ 

This is not the place for a detailed examination of 
the main arguments which have already been 
marshalled against the classical humanities. Detract- 
ors who make it their business to inveigh against the 
humanities have recapitulated these arguments from 
habit. Those of a cleverer type have harped on 
points relating to the measure, the modality and the 
opportuneness of classical teaching under present 

^ The Frankfurter Zeitung (September 30, 1915) merely 
reproduces it without comment, but underhnes the phrase 
relating to national culture. The Vossische Zeitung (Sep- 
tember 26) inserted a communication entitled Angriffe 
gegen das Gymnasium (attacks against the gymnasium). 
This article, which was contributed by some Oberlehrer 
(assistant masters), describes the attack as unjustified, 
inopportune and unconsidered. 

— 130 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

circumstances. According to them, the classical 
gymnasium has profited but little from the earlier 
recriminations inasmuch as it has not protected 
itself against fresh attacks. Latin and Greek still 
have the first place in the time table. In all esti- 
mates of the pupils' work ^ it has still been the 
custom to attribute to them the co-eihcient 
maximum of " principal and obligatory subjects." 
The teaching has retained its grammatical and 
philological character. The masters remain attached 
to the pseudo-humanistic tradition which aims at 
" preparing young men for life by teaching them 
nothing which is not directly useful in life.^ Being 
themselves University men, they train their pupils 
with a view to entering upon higher studies. These 
were vulnerable points in the defensive position 
which the gymnasium had been driven to adopt 
during the last twenty-five years, and the Radicals 

^ ZuY Neugestaltung imseres hoheren Schulwesens, by 
Dr. Georg E, Burckhardt, in the Kolnische Zeitung, 
November 8, 1915. Herr Burckhardt demands a hving 
instruction, given by teachers who are capable of impart- 
ing a national German education whatever subject they 
happen to be teaching : he asks that all subjects provided 
for in the curriculum shall be looked upon as equivalents, 
and calls for the requisite reforms in discipline, in records 
kept of the pupils, in the promotions and leaving examina- 
tions. In short, the writer desires a " human " gymnasium 
made for the pupils instead of the " conventional dogma " 
which has been elaborated for their subjection. 

2 An axiom attributed to Oscar Jager, a pedagogue who 
is well known as a defender of the classical gymnasium. 

— 131 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

did not fail to levy their attacks against them. 
They hope, under cover of political passion, to rid 
themselves for good of an institution which the 
Conservatives are struggling to save in the interests 
of their caste and their pretended superiority. 

Persons in a position to judge of the matter 
became aware that the very principle of humanistic 
education was in danger. 

The German humanists of the early nineteenth 
century had built up the school and the gymnasium 
in accordance with a sane theory of teaching which 
required them to train a man for himself above all, 
to give him a moral personality and an intellectual 
individuality by means of lessons best calculated 
to develop his natural faculties. Antiquity, that is 
to say Hellenism, with its moral and aesthetic quali- 
ties, and Latin with its logical structure and its 
grammar, seemed, at that period, the best able to 
supply the means of producing men in the complete 
and ideal sense of the word.^ 

During the nineteenth century, other influences, 
whether scientific, realistic, social or political, 

^ Die ScJmlpolitik des Neuhumani stmts und ihre Be- 
deutung fiir die Gegenwart, by Prof. Dr. Budde (Hanover), 
in the Vossische Zeitung, August i, 1915 (supplement). 
The same author has pubUshed a pamphlet entitled Krieg 
und hohere Schiile (Langensalza, 1 915), in which he seeks to 
prove that in the future, Deutschtum must be the pivot on 
which all secondary education turns, inasmuch as it is 
superior to antiquity and to all modern languages and 
cultures. 

— 132 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

deflected German pedagogy from this generally 
humanitarian aim. The secondary school, and 
especially the classical gymnasium, was peculiarly 
exposed to these outside influences and perpetually 
obliged to counteract them in order to defend its 
" ideal." The attacks of the present time are the 
logical consequence of this evolution. As it is 
impossible to go up stream again, the efforts of the 
wisest pedagogues are now being directed to save the 
fundamental principle of humanistic teaching, and 
indeed of all sound teaching, by substituting 
German " Kultur " for classical culture, according 
to the taste of the hour. 

What an anachronism, nay, what an unpardonable 
heresy it would be to bring up young Germans to the 
worship of ancient Greece ! Has not scientific 
history revealed a Hellenism far different ^ from 
that which the last century was pleased to idealize, 
in order to supply children with models of perfect 
man, perfect citizens, heroes, thinkers, writers and 
artists ? Antique culture is but the " root " of 
German culture ! ^ " We Germans have no use for a 

^ Was spyicht gegen das Gymnasium ? by Oberlehrer 
Dr. Kurt Kesseler {Vossische Zeitung, November 21, 1915, 
6th supplement). Dr. Richard Fritze (of Iviel) rephed 
to this article by saying that Homer, Sophocles, Plato, 
Demosthenes remain what they are, that Greek Art will 
for ever be the " fountain of perpetual youth " to German 
Culture (Ibid., November 27, 1915). 

2 This is one cf the ideas of the famous pan-German 
historian Karl Lamprecht. 

— 133 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

' root * as we have the flower and the fruit in our 
own culture ! " 

What is the use, cries another, of boring young 
men with grammatical rules and difficult reading 
now that trains carry one in all comfort onto classical 
soil, photography reproduces the ancient monu- 
ments, and translations enable one to read ancient 
authors with profit ? The study of Greek has been 
so much cut down that it can no longer lead to any- 
thing. As for Latin, its educative value in the 
training of the mind has been exaggerated. A 
reaction has set in. Specialists qualified to judge 
speak of it as of an antiquated dogma. ^ We now 
possess other subjects which demand " intellectual 
gymnastics " and which have a precision of their 
own : as for instance mathematics. And as there is no 
further imperative demand for " formal education," 
and people are clamouring for a training for life 
based on moral idealism {eine in einem sittlichen 
Idealismus wurzelnde Lehensbildtmg).^ It is not 
necessary to borrow from other ages and races that 
which the German people possesses in such great 
and excellent abundance. 

Athens and Rome with their " culture " have 
been relegated, more or less respectfully, to the 
Museums of Antiquities. Germany and its culture 
will take their place. An increasingly large number 

^ Formate Bildung, by Prof. Dr. Budde (Hanover) in 
the Kolnische Zeitung, February 17, 1916. 
2 Budde, Formate Bildung, cit. 

— 134 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

of persons have, since the war, begun to walk in the 
footsteps of the Emperor, who " with remarkable in- 
sight," at the conferences of 1890 and 1900 ^ asked for 
"a more decided nationalization of secondary educa- 
tion." Sincere friends of the humanistic gymnasium 
now admit the necessity of turning the "classical 
gymnasium " into a " German gymnasium." They 
ask that it shall produce citizens of the German 
State, capable both of undertaking scientific labours 
and of filling posts requiring initiative and trust. 
But all do not go the length of claiming that educa- 
tion in the future must renounce its true function, 
which is the training of men, in order to train merely 
German men and women. ^ They have an " iron " 
conviction that German culture has assimilated all 
the valuable essentials of antiquity and of Chris- 
tianity ; 2 but they do not carry their nationalist 

1 Budde, Formale Bildung. 

2 Die deutsche hohere Schule dey Ziikiinft, by Dr. K. 
Horn (of Frankfurt a. M.) (Report by Dr. Budde, in the 
Berliner Lokal-Anzciger of June 3, 1916). " If Horn really 
means to say that it is not men that we wish to train in our 
upper schools, but German men and women, he is being 
blinded by exaggerated nationalism to the highest aims 
of education " (Budde). 

3 Das " deutsche " Gymnasium by C. Grunwald (Head- 
master at Friedberg N.M.) in the Vossische Zcitung, Novem- 
ber 26, 1 915. This headmaster is a partisan of the ancients : 
" Three persons have become one in us : The Greek, the 
Christian and the German." "The Greeks are not our 
models but our forerunners." " The duty of the gymna- 
sium is to introduce elements of antiquity into the mind 
and thence into German culture." " The French and the 

— 135 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

presumption to the point of wishing to sever all the 
links which bind German culture to the ancient and 
the modern world. 



Germany is turning her back on antiquity, to 
whom she owes the most perfect masterpieces of her 
classical literature. It is not hard to guess what 
fate her upstart nationalism will mete out to the 
culture of the modern nations, those implacable 
foes of Germanism and its world-embracing mission. 
The study of French, English or Italian is declared 

English have no German gymnasia, which cannot be imi- 
tated, any more than one can imitate our officers, our 
officials, or our merchants. The unfortunate sympathies 
of America show how essential it is to learn foreign lan- 
guages in order to understand the mind of our adversaries." 
These quotations will indicate the tone of the whole article. 
Similar suggestions are made by Albert Espey in his book 
Die Schide des neuen Deutschlaud. Winke imd Ratschldge 
ziir Vertiefung des Unterrichts (Berlin Concordia, 1916. 
The school of New Germany. Hints and counsels for the 
deepening of teaching). " Only as much Greek and Latin 
will be taught as will enable the pupil to understand Greek 
and Latin terminology ; the rest is the business of the 
Universities. The more the time devoted to the teaching 
of living languages, the more customers Germany will have 
and the better will she be able to know her enemies. The 
whole of the teaching must be living, biological given by a 
homogeneous teaching body (trained on a Germanic basis 
at the Universities) ; and such teaching must produce men 
with sound judgment — men of iron who will not transform 
the Christian element into sentimentality." {Berliner Lokal- 
Anzeiger, March 17, 1916, supplement). 

— 136 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

to be unpatriotic and superfluous, and therefore 
harmful. Every hour devoted to these languages is 
lost to the mother tongue. How can one to-day 
justify the fact that in a public school of the Empire 
eight hours a week are devoted to Latin and two or 
three to French or English, when the mother tongue 
is treated like a Cinderella ? It has been proved 
by means of " new " statistics, that the use of 
German is as widespread in the world as that of 
English, and that French, in spite of some slight 
increase, is exceeded by the other two in the propor- 
tion of three to one.^ 

World commerce will of course be conducted in 
German — every one knows that. As for " culture,'' 
" legends " and '* delightful folk-songs," not to speak 
of "manners, customs and political institutions," 
there are no such things except in Germany ! ^ The 
contribution of other countries, and especially of 
France, is limited to corrupt literature, disorderly 
pot-houses, words of a parasitic meaning, ridiculous 
fashions, etc., etc.^ Let it therefore be resolved 

1 These statistics have gone the round of the German and 
Austrian press {Neues Wiener Journal, August 21, 1915). 

'^ It was left to a woman, Frl. Kathe Schirmacher, a doc- 
tor of the University of Paris, and author of a thesis on 
Voltaire, to formulate these arguments with the greatest 
rancour. The lecture she gave at the Coliseum of Kiel, 
as in deed all her hypergermanistic propaganda, was severely 
condemned by the Berliner Tageblatt of November 20, 1915. 

^ French hterature and French art long ago became a 
daily necessity to a section of the German press. Frl. Kathe 

— ^Z7 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

that young Germans shall learn no more smatterings 
of French and English — the stock-in-trade of a 
waiter ! The German Mother-tongue, German dig- 
nity, German morals, and German culture will all 
benefit by such a determination. 

The banishment of the French and English tongues 
is chiefly significant on account of the spirit which 
has caused it.^ We should have liked to think, 

Schirmacher declares that " He who buys a French novel 
is disloyally encouraging the rival of a German author." 
In spite of this it should be noted that at a picture sale in 
Berlin a few months ago, works by French impressionist 
painters were sold at prices which have never even been 
approached by those of German masters. The cafes of 
Berlin are inferior to those of Paris, and they are patronized 
by a different class of person. Finally, at the very outbreak 
of war, the Deiitscher Sprachverein (Society for the promo- 
tion of the German language) entered into a ridiculous 
partnership with the poUce for the rounding up of foreign 
words used in commerce, in advertisements, restaurants, 
offices, etc. The only parallel to this proceeding is to be 
found in the grotesque Austro-German campaign against 
Paris fashions. These facts would furnish several chapters 
on the psychology of the Germans during the war. 

1 E.g. Prof. Dr. H. Gaudig, a member of the Higher 
School Council, in his AnsbUcke in die Zukunft dcr deutschen 
S chide (Leipzig, Teubner, 1913), adjured liis colleagues in 
teaching "not to subject the boys to an apprenticeship to 
foreign tongues, which are severe in their demands and 
furnish little enjoyment. They are a source of danger 
to the culture of Germany, our gentle country (heimzart). 
" The place of Deutschtum is with Christianity, in the Holy 
of Holies ; everything foreign [das Fremdtiim) must remain 
in the porch {Frankfurter Zeitung, June 11, 1916 : Das 
Deutschtum und die Schule, by R. Muthesius). It should 

— 138 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

before the war, that the hereditary prejudice against 
French, compounded as it is of hatred and jealousy, 
had been in some measure blunted. We know now 
that it has persisted and that there is added to it the 
arrogant contempt of the parvenu. A movement is 
on foot to banish French from secondary schools, 
whether for girls or boys ; or at most, etwas franzo- 
sisch will be optional. 

English is treated with a little more respect, in 
spite of the intensity of the odium Britannictim 
crystallized in a phrase from henceforth historic, 
" God punish England ! " English will be wanted 
in commerce. In the course of the present educa- 
tional campaign teachers have been heard to 
pronounce judgments on British " culture " and 
literature which the hypnotism of the war is not 
sufficient to excuse.^ 

Learned philologists have uttered the oddest 
ideas on countries in which they have lived, and to 
whose literature they have devoted long years of 

be noted that the editors of the paper have announced that 
they do not share the author's views. Of course the Ger- 
man newspapers have registered and commented on the 
answers made in France to inquiries (e.g. in Opinion, 
Renaissance, Petit Journal, etc.) as to the expediency or 
inexpediency of teaching and learning German in France 
in the future {Frankfurter Zeitung, October 6. Kdhiische 
Zeitung, October 7, Vossische Zeitung, November 23, 

1915)- 

^ See the study on the Propagande allemande jugee par 

des Allemands in the Mercure de France of February 15, 

1915- 

— 139 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

study — it is certainly true that foreign nations have 
remained very foreign to them. 

The utiUtarian point of view has called forth some 
extraordinary proposals. In the Upper House the 
representative of the University of Breslau, Prof. 
Dr. Hillebrand, proposed substituting the languages 
of Germany's new Eastern friends for those of her 
Western enemies. All the representatives of the 
other Prussian Universities and a certain number of 
distinguished personages signed this motion, " which 
was well received."^ 

A Bavarian deputy, actuated by the same senti- 
ments, has broken a lance in favour of the Flemish 
tongue. 2 It will be said that these are annexionist 
proposals, but they are certainly typical of the 
educational point of view. 

Let us be just. Those who have laboured in 
Germany for the improvement of the teaching of 
living languages have not all been blinded by 
national fanaticism to the point of burning all that 
they have revered. In this respect, the ideas of Dr. 
Arnold Schroer, professor of English at the newly 
established commercial academy of Cologne, deserves 

^ Vossische Zeitung, May 25, 191 6: The Vorwdrts of 
June 20, 1 916 (supplement), publishes, with marks of ap- 
proval, some extracts of a leading article from the Rheinisch- 
Westfdlische Zeitung, which describes this motion as 
premature, indiscreet and wanting in tact. 

2 Munchener Neueste Nachrichten February 3, 1916 
(Sitting of the Diet of Februar}'- i). 

— 140 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

some attention. A study of them will enable one 
to form a just idea of the hold of the national spirit 
over the judgment of experts.^ 

Herr Schroer insistently demands that foreign 
languages, whether ancient or modern, shall no 
longer take precedence of the mother tongue. 
Teachers of English and French should also be 
qualified to teach German. Only the elements of 
foreign languages need be taught, wherever or what- 
ever the particular school may be. If this element- 
ary teaching is sound, each pupil will be able to 
perfect himself in a given language according to his 
need or his tastes, that is to say, he will be able to 
understand a literary work with the aid of a diction- 



^ He has set forth these ideas in two voluminous feuil- 
letons of the ultra patriotic Kolnische Zeitung (June 26, 
28 and 30, 1 915, and October 31, November 3 and 5, 1915). 
The titles are Die modernen Weltsprachen nach dem Welt- 
kriege, and Gymnasium und Sprachmiterricht nach dem 
Weltkriege. In the same newspaper (e.g. on August 5, 
1 915) a certain Dr. Otto Sarrazin makes a violent protest 
against persons who dare to put advertisements into a 
paper asking for "governesses who speak fluent French." 
The Berliner Local- Anzieger (of June 14, 1915) gives a 
report of a lecture given at the Central Teaching Institute 
of BerUn by Dr. Janell. The lecturer weighs the opinions 
of persons who wish to ehminate all enemy tongues from 
the curriculum of the secondary schools, as well as of those 
of others who wish, on the contrary, to add to them Rus- 
sian, Italian and Japanese " in order to learn to understand 
these nations better." His conclusion is that English 
alone should be retained in the gymnasia (from the 3rd 
class onwards) and in the non-classical secondary schools. 

— 141 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

ary or to learn to converse. It is neither possible 
nor desirable that a German should know a foreign 
language well enough to appear anything but a 
citizen of the German empire. It is true that 
German culture cannot be isolated from English or 
French culture any more than one would wish to 
disconnect it from antique culture. It is both 
possible and proper to teach as much of foreign 
culture as is necessary for the better comprehension 
of national culture, even by means of summary 
instruction, provided it be living and intense and 
that it be linked up with lessons on the mother 
tongue, on national history, etc. 

English, which is spoken by five hundred million 
human beings, is more important than French, which 
is the language of a bare eighty-eight million. 
English should therefore be begun in the gymnasium 
in the lower classes while French should be kept for 
the higher ones, where it might even be made 
optional. In general, the tendency has been to 
exaggerate the study of living languages during the 
last thirty years or so. The " neophilologists " have 
helped to " disgust " the students with such study. 
Fortunately for Germany, the recent movement 
towards the improvement of the method has produced 
a vast supply of excellent teachers, and of excep- 
tionally good school-books, and a great deal of 
practical experience. The circumstance is a lucky 
one, as it is not probable that Germans will be able 
to go to England and France in the near future to 

— 142 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

study the language : nor is it likely that genuine 
English or French readers or ** assistants " will 
care to come to Germany to furnish " material for 
observation." 

In short, Herr Schroer does not preach the banish- 
ment of English or French from the domain of 
secondary education. What he demands is their 
entire subordination to the teaching of German, 
and the " exclusion of everything foreign except the 
bare elements of linguistic study, especially in the 
classical gymnasia. It is evident that a knowledge 
of foreign nations and of their civilization seems to 
him to be of a very secondary importance for the 
general culture of his compatriots. 



The classical philologists are lamenting that their 
heart (das Herzstilck) is being torn out of their body 
by the merciless curtailment of Greek and Latin. 
The neophilologists think that they are being but 
ill repaid for the help they gave but lately to the 
" moderns " against the " ancients " by spreading 
and perfecting the teaching of modern foreign 
languages. They resent being checked in their 
impetuous advance at the very moment when the 
German began to be at home on the steps of the 
world. Both however are ready to sacrifice their 
professional preferences on the altar of national 
" Kultur." They have been persuaded that the 
" highest stake " of the present war is this same 

— 143 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

unique, glorious and unrivalled culture. It is to 
save German culture that the " brave soldiers of the 
Emperor have taken up arms against its Latin and 
Anglo-Saxon rivals and against the barbarian Slavs." 
The schools would fail in their most sacred duty 
towards the Fatherland if, in face of the criminal 
attacks of enemies, they did not make the German 
language the pivot on which the whole of scholastic 
education turned. But the schools which have up 
to the present shown the greatest indifference on this 
point are these very classical gymnasia ! 

At the beginning of 1916, the union of German 
teachers (Deutscher Germanisten-V erhand) presented 
a memorial to the Prussian Government on the urgent 
need for the reorganization and reinforcement of 
their teaching in the secondary schools. In their 
capacity as specialists, they ask that linguistic 
teaching shall be penetrated through and through 
by the past and present life of the Fatherland, in its 
lower stages by comparison with the local dialect 
of the pupils, and in its higher stages by comparison 
with the speech of earlier centuries. The right use 
of the mother tongue, whether in speaking or in 
writing, will be greatly facilitated by such a proceed- 
ing. Declamation and readings from national litera- 
ture will be given in such a way that the individual 
tastes of each pupil will receive proper development. 
The result of this will be that the young will be led 
to love and admire the riches of German literature 
in all its stages from the legends and naively popular 

— 144 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

songs down to the complex creations of the poetic 
art of the Middle Ages and the present day. 

The teachers of German language and literature 
deny that their demand for a larger place in the 
curriculum for their subject shows any desire to 
injure teaching of ancient or modern languages by 
their colleagues. They look upon an extra hour a 
week as an " appropriate and appreciable " gain. 
The number of hours devoted to German grammar, 
literature and composition is not, in their opinion, a 
matter of the highest importance, inasmuch as a 
clever teacher will be able to exercise his pupils in the 
use of the national language in whatever lesson he 
happens to be giving. 

But enthusiasts look upon the demand of the 
specialists as " too professional," much too timid, 
and as having little connexion with the grandiose 
affirmation of Deutschtum in the present war and 
with its providential mission. 

" Is it conceivable that the teaching of the mother 
tongue should be confined to three hours a week^ 
when the same time is given to lessons in every 
language and twice that amount to dead languages ? 
It is just the comparative, historical and philological 
method which disgusts the children. The utilitarian 
point of view should take precedence of all others. 
Non scholae, sed vitae. At no time in their previous 
history has it been the duty of Germans to culti- 
vate their language, and their right to spread it all 
over the world ; for the German tongue is the 

— 145 — K 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

glorious symbol of the nation's culture, and the 
essential instrument of its power. To concede to the 
teaching of German a somewhat larger place in the 
time tables of the gymnasia and other schools would 
be of little use. What is needed is an entire recon- 
struction of the educational system, not on the lines 
indicated by specialists, but in accordance with the 
dictates of ripe experience in the domains of psycho- 
logy, pedagogy and politics. Such reconstruction 
will, sooner or later, be found to be absolutely neces- 
sary." ^ Now these psychological, pedagogical and 
socio-political factors have been clearly brought 
before the public in thousands of " war composi- 
tions " which have been collected to form part of the 
war exhibition of the new pedagogic museum at 
Berlin." 2 

1 The above paragraph forms the conclusion of a criti- 
cism of the memorial of the German professors by Prof. 
Dr. Gramzow : Neugestaltung des dentschen U-Jiterrichts, 
in the Vossische Zeitung, June 14, 1916. 

2 The Central Kaiser Wilhelm II. Pedagogic Institute 
(see above p. 30). In May, 1915, there were in the exhibi- 
tion 7,000 compositions dealing with 1,500 " war subjects," 
written by the children in 151 primary schools {Vossische 
Zeitung, May 12, 191 5). The Headmaster of the Training 
College at Buda-Pest, Herr Nagy, sent essays from 150 
Hungarian schools of all grades {Ibid., August 5, 1915). 
The Neues Wiener Journal (May 21 and June 5, 1915) speaks 
of similar experiments made in the Austro-Hungarian 
capitals. The pedagogue Plecher has done the same in 
Munich {Berliner Tagehlatt, June 2, 1915). Dr. Kober 
has made some very just observations on the relative value 
of these " war-compositions " {Kriegsaufsdtze) and on the 

— T46 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

The secondary schools are well represented. 
There are essays from Germany, Austria and Hun- 
gary. Sometimes the subjects have been set by the 
teachers, and sometimes the choice of subject and 
the method of treatment have been left to the 
pupil's discretion. 

German pedagogues imagine that these composi- 
tions have revealed interesting " facts." We fear 
that these childish outpourings on the war can 
furnish us with no criticism w^hich will throw fresh 
light on the war, its causes, its vicissitudes and its 
consequences, nor on the methodology of essay 
writing, nor on pedagogic psychology, nor on socio- 
political education. We are ready to believe that 
when the elementary schoolboy is asked '' How do 
you picture your life after the war ? " he is express- 
ing his true and personal feelings in replying that he 
wishes to be a farmer and live in the country " be- 
cause he will then be able to satisfy his hunger." 
Equal sincerity is no doubt shown by the boy who 
says that he wishes to enter the army, " because 
when I leave it I shall be given a post in which I can 
rest," and the many children who look forward to 
learning a trade " in order to earn money which one 
can spend." 

All these children of the people express sentiments 
which are curious, although strongly inspired .by 
the conditions of the moment. But to allow a 

caution with which conclusions must be drawn from them 
[Vossische Zeitung, June 2, 1915: Vom Kriegsaufsatz). 

— 147 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

pupil in a gymnasium to write a long essay, lacking 
both arrangement and style, on Hindenburg's ^ 
strategy or on one of the Chancellor's speeches in the 
Reichstag, is to commit an error which is both 
pedagogic and psychologic. Compositions of this 
kind reproduce impressions which are ill-assimilated, 
false and artificial. The " Programmes " (annual 
reports) of the gymnasia complacently mention the 
" war tasks " (Kriegsarbeit) performed at the com- 
mand of the authorities in order to " enable the 
pupils to share in great events," such as the celebra- 
tions of victories {Siegesfeiern), lectures on the war 
instead of morning prayers, etc. The youthful 
brain has been stuffed with impressions and apprecia- 
tions which are beyond its power of comprehension. 
As for the reading in schools, teachers of German 
have been reproached with paying insufficient atten- 
tion to the initiative and individual taste of their 
pupils. It is supposed that these youths are more 
interested in a vigorous speech of Bismarck's than 
in the purest tirades of classical literature. This is 
perhaps a fallacious presumption based on a few 
exceptions. The Administration nevertheless recom- 
mended, some years ago, that " pages " of contem- 
porary history, politics and literature should be 
read. These recommendations have recurred to 
people's minds since the war broke out. The 
German bookseller has shown himself worthy of his 

^ Vom Kriegsaufsatz, by Dr. Kober {Vossische Zeitung, 
June 2, 1 915 and Frankfurter Zeitung, December 20, 1915). 

— 148 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

reputation. In a few months war books were 
literally swarming.^ 

One may be taken as an example. Prof. Dr. Hans 
Miihl has made a collection ^ of select passages for 
use in secondary schools. In the first part, Bismarck 
and his contemporaries themselves expound the 
foreign policy of the Empire as then constituted : 
in another " the new Germany under Wilhelm II is 
described by the great thurifers of the Emperor. 
The last, which is entitled The War, is composed 
of speeches by Bethmann-HoUweg, of articles on the 
cause of the conflagration, on the culpability of 
England, etc., etc. 

It is easy to recognize the spirit which guides the 
" choice " of passages agreeable to the Administra- 
tion. For the Minister of Education is on the 
watch, we may be sure of that. By a decree dated 
May i8, 1915, he has warned the schools against 

^ Vossische Zeitung, March 26, 1916. A headmaster 
has taken the trouble to review all the scholastic literature 
produced by the war, as well as all the descriptions of the 
future organization of the schools. The same writer has 
also discussed all the school-books on history, geography, 
German, arithmetic, religion, i.e. which have been inspired 
by the war. Among them are many bad ones, and, says 
the author, " they must be very carefully chosen if they 
are to help forward the " culture of patriotic thought " 
{Vossische Zeitung, June 7, 1915). 

2 This collection, which has received much support from 
the Press, is entitled Lesebuch zur Weltpolitik (Reading- 
book on world pohtics) [pub. by Cotta, in Stuttgart]. [Koln- 
ische Zeitung, December 12, 1915). 

— 149 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

collections " hastily made up of passages of French 
or English origin,'* " products of the l5^ng Press of 
our enemies on the origins and the vicissitudes of the 
war, boundless insults offered to the German army, 
to its leaders, to the German people and to the 
dynasty. "1 Moreover the " Central Committee for 
the suppression of deleterious literature [Schund- 
litteratur) has thought it necessary to inaugurate an 
active campaign against doubtful war-literature 
(Kriegs-schund-litterahtr) . According to Samuleit of 
Neukolln, himself a headmaster and one of the 
lecturers of the said Society, the series of stories 
(of which there were over ninety thousand different 
fasciculis) and the innumerable and perfectly silly 
stories for girls vanished in a day to make room for 
" war-serials " published by the same firms. Nearly 
a hundred of these were in existence a few months 
after the outbreak of war. And " the waves of this 
mud are ever rising and poisoning the heart of the 
young." " Teachers will be hard put to it to stem 
this torrent." The evil must be a serious one, as 
is evinced by the fact that the generals commanding 
various districts and the Courts of Justice have been 
obliged to interfere. ^ 

^ Vossische Zeiiung, July 9, 1915. 

2 Vossische Zeittmg, March 26, 1 916. The traders who are 
responsible for these works are the same persons who used 
to flood the foreign markets with their productions. Their 
energies have in no way abated now that they are obliged to 
confine their attentions to their own countr5^ 

— 150 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

Persons who suppose that a greater latitude in the 
choice of essay-subjects and in reading will increase 
the pupils' interest in their German lessons, will find 
that they are making a serious mistake. The transi- 
tion of tutelage to the cult of free personality which 
is one of the reproaches levelled at the secondary 
schools, is not itself without danger. " Subjectiv- 
ism " has been denounced since the beginning of 
the war as " one of the most dangerous dissolvents " 
of " old German discipline." 

It is also to be doubted whether the Administra- 
tion will succeed in deriving any genuine patriotic, 
national and civic benefit from the martial excite- 
ment which it has itself aroused in its schools. 
Excellent results are however expected by the 
authorities from the teaching of history. 
* * * 

On September 2, 1915, there appeared in Prussia 
some fresh instructions on the teaching of History. 
The Minister for Education, having ordered at the 
outbreak of war that the " grandiose " events of the 
moment ^ were to form the subjects of history 

^ Every effort has been made to achieve this end. The 
pupils have been called upon to take part in all kinds of 
war work, such as collecting for loans, collecting gold 
coins, and bringing together old copper utensils, etc. They 
have been appointed to help with the driving in of nails 
into the statues and symbols of war, with field work and 
gardening, and to take their part in military exercises. 
Every school organized " celebrations of victory " 
{Siegesfeiern) to which the parents were invited ; 

— 151 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

lessons, finally decided that from henceforth Prussian 
and German history of the last fifty years should 
form the bulk of the historical teaching in secondary 
schools. In so doing the Minister makes use of the 
name of his imperial master. And indeed it is true 
that by his ordinances of May i, 1889, and February 
13, 1890, Wilhelm II settled the question in favour 
of the nationalists, who deemed it more important 
for a good German to understand the development 
of German power under the Hohenzollerns than the 
Peloponnesian war or the campaigns of Hannibal. 
The Emperor desired that " young men should no 
longer be conducted from the Thermopyles to Ross- 
bach and Vionville by way of Cannes, but that they 
should go from Gravelotte back to Montinea and 
the Thermopyles by way of Leuthan and Rossbach." 
The schemes of work for 1892 were drawn up to 
suit these requirements ; to-day this " inversion " is 
an accomplished fact. Children in the sixth and 
fifth classes will be told stories from history so as 
" to open their young minds to ideas of heroism and 
of the greatness of history. Ancient history will be 
taught in the fourth class. In the two parts of the 
third class and in the first year of the second, the 
subject will be German history ; in the upper second 
and in class iB. the subject will be general history 
up to 1786 ; and finally in lA. the pupils will be 

finally, it seems that the headmasters were not niggardly 
in the matter of giving whole holidays [Schiilfrei) {Ber- 
liner Tageblatt, September i, 1915). 

— 152 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

taught the latest German history. The Minister 
has reahzed that this redistribution will greatly over- 
load the later years. He has therefore allowed the 
teachers a certain latitude so that they may organize 
(i.e. limit) their teaching of ancient and modern 
history so as to give as much time as possible to 
contemporary Prussian and German history." 

This ministerial decree met with a fairly good 
reception, coming as it did at a moment when over- 
excited national sentiment is doing all in its power 
to forward the struggle for world-wide domination. 
The fact remains, however, that some very sensible 
criticisms of this new order have been formulated. 
Prof. Eduard Meyer, ^ who occupies the chair of 
Ancient History at the University of Berlin, is far 
too good an official to look upon this new adminis- 
trative measure as involving a curtailment of his 
subject; on the contrary, he hopes that from it will 
result " a more scientific use of ancient history," as 
well as " the enfranchisement of the classical 
gymnasium." " This type of school, being over- 
whelmed with privileges, used to attract too large 
and too much mixed a crowd of pupils : it was 
becoming democratic. In order to live up to its 
pretentious claim to impart ' general culture,' it 
was obliged to teach everything without really 
studying anything. Not only was the standard of 
work constantly on the dechne, but preparation for 

1 In the Vossische Zeitung, September 19, 1916 (4th 
supplement). 

- 153 ~ 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

individual scientific work with a view to further 
work at the University had become impossible. 
The rules stifled all individuality and all life." 
Herr Meyer therefore thinks that the authorities 
are right to limit the teaching of certain periods of 
histor}^ with a view to dealing exhaustively with 
national history. 

But pedagogues must not forget to illustrate " the 
growth of German culture " by explaining the nature 
of its " connexion with the past, with antiquity, 
with the Middle Ages and with the Renaissance " : 
in other words, they must set forth the " political 
development which is the very essence of all history." 
" Care must also be taken not to become ' one- 
sided ' like the English, by making history exclu- 
sively national. The History of Germany can only 
be perfectly understood by linking it to a simulta- 
neous study of the great historical evolutions of her 
neighbours. This is what the Government ought to 
have pointed out without regard to the tendencies 
of the day." 

By his violent propaganda against the English 
people ^ and his aversion to democracy. Professor 
Meyer has proved that he does not desire French and 
English history to be taught in order to arouse the 
sympathies of the pupils in favour of these two 
nations, but to make them understand " how German 
culture has asserted itself in the struggle of the 

^ See the Mercure de France, February 15, 1916, p. 577 
and following pages. 

— 154 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

nations among themselves." As far as he is con- 
cerned, the *' tendencies of the day," which are 
neghgible to the Parisian Government are, it seems, 
tendencies towards a future peaceful collaboration 
among nations, and not those nationalistic tendencies 
which he himself has helped to create. 

Dr. Miihhng ^ thinks, with many of his colleagues, 
that it would have been advisable to wait till after 
the war to undertake the remodelling of the teaching 
of history. For, " apart from the inopportune 
confusion which the practical application of the new 
order will certainly cause, it is to be feared that the 
over-excitement of the moment will falsify the spirit 
of it. No one can blame teachers for lacking the 
objectivity which is nevertheless so necessary in 
instructions where they cannot avoid speaking of 
politics, whether party politics or foreign politics." 
As early as 1893, the first Congress of German 
historians, held at Munich, interpreted the imperial 
ordinances on the same subject in a sense which 
rejects all bias and all proselytism on the part of the 
teachers. " Historical teaching " said the Congress, 
" does not aim at preparing children for public life 
by a systematic cultivation of definite political 
opinions ; it aims rather at giving future citizens 
enough historical knowledge to interest them in the 
study of history and to arouse in them a desire to 
participate in it." Herr Miihling appeals to the 

^ In the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger , October 3, 1915 (ist 
supplement). 

— 155 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

feeling for justice, " which was ever one of the noblest 
quaUties of the German character." The schools 
must educate good patriots, not " fanatical parti- 
sans." 

The Liberal Frankfurter Zeitung,^ in a leading 
article, had likewise pointed out the dangers which 
might possibly arise from the teaching of quite recent 
national history. " Did not the headmaster of a 
gymnasium interpret to his pupils a speech made by 
the Chancellor in the Reichstag in August 1915 ! " 
Teachers need a vast amount of tact to prevent their 
teaching of contemporary history from degenerating 
into an education of political opinions. This class of 
instruction needs just as delicate handling as does 
that in religious subjects. The political element 
cannot be eliminated from it. Now it is possible that 
the personal point of view of the teacher may shock 
the Administration as well as the pupils. From the 
pedagogic point of view, it is absolutely necessary 
to leave men who have left school the right to choose 
their own party, the school having previously 
taught them to appreciate tolerance, the alpha and 
omega of all civic teaching ! History has not the 
stability of the exact sciences, such as mathematics, 
but is by its nature problematic : hence the fact 
that its educative value consists in showing exactly 
how appreciation of events can differ in different 
individuals or nations, even when these events are 
quite recent. 

^ Of October 2, 1915. 

- 156- 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

Thus the principal innovation as well as the chief 
danger in this remodelling of the teaching of history 
in the Prussian secondary schools is, in the minds of 
some, the liberty left to teachers and schools, and, 
in the minds of others, the " capital " importance 
given to contemporary national history. It is true 
that this liberty permits specialization. Classical 
schools will be able to give more prominence to 
ancient history if they like. No one, not even the 
Administration, will henceforth have cause to com- 
plain of the non-observance of the uniform regula- 
tions brought about by " that growing democratiza- 
tion which is the enemy of all responsibility." 
Finally the higher classes in the gymnasia will 
prepare boys properly for the fruitful liberty prevail- 
ing in the Universities. Herr E. Meyer is also of 
this opinion. 

Still, that does not alter the fact that there is 
great danger in allowing teachers of history too free 
a hand in regulating the instructions to be given on 
recent and contemporary history. The war propa- 
ganda has shown how fragile were the notions of 
justice and impartiality cherished by German 
professors of the highest repute. All have not the 
same talent, or the same tact, as they are never 
tired of showing. The period after the war will be, 
for Germany, a period of re-grouping, of sharp 
political struggles, of violent discussions " on the 
virtues and the power of the race whose triumph 
has been cut short by a jealous and perfidious 

- 157 - 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

coalition of hereditary and irreconcilable enemies." 
We need only read the Lokal Anzeiger and the 
Frankfurter Zeitung to see that if the Germans 
themselves think it necessary to issue a warning 
against chauvinistic deviations and patriotic proselyt- 
ism in the very schools, it is because they are 
acutely aware of the dangers thereby entailed. We 
on our side are convinced that this danger is very 
real, unless the commotion is profound enough to 
bring back the Germans to a more sober and equit- 
able estimate of the character of other nations. No 

one would complain if this result were achieved. 
* * * 

The agitation fermented around the classical 
gymnasium will not succeed in " sweeping away " 
that institution. As heretofore the latter will find 
other Willamowitz-Moellendorfs — he was " War- 
Rektor " of the University of Berlin in 1915 — and 
these men wiU use their brilliant powers of persuasion 
to defend the cause of a threatened Hellenism, before 
learned bodies and in fashionable assemblies. The 
Universities and the Administration will protect 
it out of esprit de corps. It will continue to be 
the favourite school of the well-to-do classes and 
the " right-thinking " public. A few formal con- 
cessions will be made to reformist pedagogues, to 
agitated nationalists and to that section of the public 
which looks upon the gymnasium as an antiquated 
institution, " far removed from the world and its 
realities, and not unlike a prisoners' camp where a 

-158 - 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

life of brutalizing routine is endured far from the 
lights of the civilized world. "^ 

The classical gymnasium will thus inspire fresh 
confidence, thanks to the extension of its lease. 

The regulating of historical teaching is the first of 
the sacrifices made to the taste of the hour. It is 
one of those sacrifices which a Prussian Administra- 
tion would make without compromising itself. It is 
political rather than educational, and it is this fact 
which most interests us as foreigners. In conjunc- 
tion with the military education imposed by the 
Administration of the war, it will contribute to the 
" nationalization " of the secondary school. What 
more could be demanded before the end of the war ? 
The Minister for Education will continue his '' patch- 
work " (Flickwerk). He has avoided the pitfall of 
the Einheitsschule (standardized primary school 
based on ideas of equality) by promising facilities 
for admission to the secondary schools to the element- 
ary scholars. He has not dared to lay hands on the 
" preparatory classes " of these establishments. 
All the other matters the Administration prefers to 
leave to the future and — to its collaborators. 



Something has already been done by these colla- 
borators. A certain number of " privy councillors," 

^ Prof. Hildebrandt of Berlin thus sums up public opinion 
in the article of the Vossische Zeitung quoted below on 
p. 60, note 2. 

— 159 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

aided by University professors, by headmasters and 
by teachers in secondary schools — twenty-three tried 
officials in all — have compiled an imposing volume ^ 
in which they set forth the " possibilities " of partial 
reform on which the public and the Administration 
may some day be able to agree. This collection of 
the " 23 " has been analysed and commented on 
without bitterness in the Press. ^ The ardour of 
the opposite party has abated. The Minister has 
been able to have the schedule of the movement 
drawn up by his actual collaborators, without in any 
way involving his administration in the matter. 

Councillor Norrenberg, the editor of the volume, 
takes pains to point out that he has imposed no 
particular scheme of work upon his colleagues. The 
latter treat any given subject according to their 

^ Die deutsche hohere Schule nach deni Weltkriege — 
Beitrage ziir Frage der Weiterentwickelung des hoheren 
Schulwesens gesammelt von Dr. J. Norrenberg, Geh. 
Oberregierungsrat (Leipzig, Teubner, 1916). (The Ger- 
man secondary school after the world-war. Contribu- 
tions to the future development of secondary teaching, 
etc.) 

2 By Prof. Hildebrandt (of Berlin) in the Vossische 
Zeitung of December 25, 1915, under the significant title 
Die kiinftigen Schulprohleme (School problems of the future), 
and in the Kolnische Zeitung of March 4, 1916, by Prof. 
Moldenhauer (of Cologne) under the title of the work itself. 
The Frankfurter Zeitung of March 12, 1916, announces a 
similar collection which will be issued by the well-known 
schoolmaster Dr. Wychgram, Educational Councillor of 
Liibeck. This work contains opinions of a less officious 
character. 

— 160 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

ability and express their own ideas. Sometimes 
they contradict one another. This does not obscure 
the fact that the opinions set forth are largely those 
of the Administration. These contradictions furnish 
an excellent proof that it is difficult to satisfy every 
one as well as the State. 

In bringing forward his book, the editor appeals 
to the " confidence of the public." No one is better 
aware than he of the causes of the general mistrust 
with which parents and pupils view the " high '* 
school and its teachers. He reveals them without 
more ado : they are excessive regulations, annoying 
discipline, exaggerated tutelage in and for everything, 
over-elaborate records of progress, too many details 
in the work, etc., etc., etc. In short, the meticulous 
working of the educational system which puts into 
the background " the general and moral culture of 
the pupils " and " their training with a view to a 
voluntary and joyful subjection to the law." 

This last point is worked out in an introduction 
by Councillor Reinhardt, formerly headmaster of 
the gymnasium at Frankfurt-on the Main and famous 
for his work on the " reform " of the gymnasia. 
The school, says Herr Reinhardt, should be an image 
of society. The pupil there learns his trade of 
citizenship. If he is accustomed to be free within 
the limits imposed by the necessities of the school, 
he will live his life in the world without seeking to 
escape from the control of the organizations which 
constitute the State. Work in the German national 

— i6i — L 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

school should be organized with a view to the require- 
ments of public institutions {staatshtwtisst)} Train- 
ing in physical valour, with a view to military service, 
must exist side by side with mental training. Both 
are fundamentally German. 

The " national " leitmotif dominates all the 
contributions to this collection, though all are 
alleged to be independent one of another, even the 
very professorial dissertation of Dr. Lisco, of 
Schulpforta, that celebrated centre of classical study. 
The subject of this essay is the unique efficaciousness 
of Latin Grammar in the logical training of the mind. 

Prof. Neubauer, writing on " historical and civic 
instruction "^ merely develops the leading ideas in 
the ministerial decree analysed above. ^ 

" Deutsch " is the title given by Prof. Dr. Sprengel, 
of Frankfurt, to his study on the teaching of the 
mother tongue in the classical gymnasia. The very 

^ The " State idea " did not exist in Germany at the 
time of the Reform, which produced the pubHc school ; 
after the Napoleonic wars an attempt was made to reahze 
it, and in the course of the last fifty years it has become 
crystallized. It is thus that the object of the modern 
German school is being determined in a perfectly organic 
manner. 

2 Dr. Hahn's article, already quoted (on p. 127 above) 
is entirely devoted to pointing out the necessity for special 
civic teaching in secondary schools. The arguments of 
Dr. Hahn reveal a low nationalism. His lack of " politi- 
cal " spirit was commented on by a number of German 
authors even in the first year of the war. 

3 See above p. 151 and following papers. 

— 162 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

brevity of this imperious title is significant. " Not 
only can German literature, both ancient and 
modern, boast of unique treasures which amply 
suffice for the education of the national spirit, but 
German art is also rich enough to enable us to do 
without models furnished by other countries from 
France to Japan. ^ 

The question of modern foreign languages is 
treated by Councillor Engwer, who knows and 
appreciates France, and by Herr Morsbach, professor 
of English in the University of Gottingen, a man 
whose judgment of the value of the English language 
and civilization does not appear to have been 
obscured by the grotesque Anglophobia of the Ger- 
man masses. Both are endeavouring to dissuade 
their countrymen from continuing a rash and fruit- 
less struggle against the civilizations in the middle of 
which Germany has always lived and from which 
she cannot escape : civilizations from which she has 
derived and will continue to derive inestimable 
benefits. On the other hand, the writers entreat 
their fellow- Germans, for the sake of their own 
dignity, to give up " their mania for aping everything 
which comes from abroad simply because it is 
foreign." " The best way of resisting the ascend- 
ency of one's neighbour is, first, to become well 
acquainted with him, and secondly, to cure oneself 
of one's own laziness or incapacity to react." Here, 
surely, we find a reasonable Nationalism, and one 
1 See above, p 137 note 2. 
— 16^ — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

which must be acceptable to any Government that 
is conscious of its duties and has the interests of its 
country at heart. 

The chapter on " teachers of the CathoHc ReHgion 
and ReHgious Education " was confided by Coun- 
cillor Norrenberg to Dr. Rauschen, of the School of 
Catholic Theology at Bonn. This device may be 
due to a desire to convey a warning to certain clerical 
centres at the Court famed for their uncompromising- 
ness and their nationalist agitations, especially since 
the war. " Religious instruction also should contri- 
bute something to the development of national 
feeling by concentrating the attention of the young 
on the German Church, on the particularities of its 
forms of worship, on its saints and theologians, on its 
Orders and Congregations. But its chief object 
should be to teach toleration." 

Of course training in courage, in view of armed 
service (Wehrhaftmachtmg) , occupies a large place 
in Councillor Norrenberg's compilation. The nation 
has accepted the inauguration of this kind of training 
at the hands of the military authorities. " The 
secondary schools must not only free themselves 
from the reproach of having neglected physical 
education, but they must also create a model which 
must be thoroughly German in character, in method, 
in breadth and in the reality and scientific excellence 
of its practical application." 

" Biology and Hygiene " are recommended by 
Dr. V. R. Haustein of Berlin as substitutes for the 

— 164 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

theoretical teaching of Natural Science in the 
curriculum of secondary schools from the sixth 
class upwards ; these subjects are to serve as an 
introduction to the education of the race in physical 
valour. 

" Gymnastics and German games — no English 
sports — are to be taught by assistant teachers who 
have acquired the facultas docendi in physical exer- 
cises at the University." Such is the dream 
cherished by Dr. Neuendorf, headmaster of a non- 
classical secondary school at Miilheim on the Rhine 
and discussed by him at the conclusion of his import- 
ant contribution on the physical education of the 
young Germans of to-morrow. 

And as public opinion had accused the teachers of 
being " innocents " in the matter of pedagogy, the 
headmaster of a gymnasium in Diisseldorf has 
written a special treatise to Councillor Norrenberg's 
book on '' the training and perfecting of teachers in 
secondary education." 

We cannot but see that the advisers of the Minister 
for Education and their collaborators are making a 
frank attempt to go half-w^ay to meet the desiderata 
suggested by the war to public opinion and to 
teachers. A treatise on " the importance of resi- 
dential schools for boys " [Knahefialumnate) in the 
light of the new education problems is highly charac- 
teristic in this respect. The author is Dr. Borbein. 
Boarding-schools are not popular in Prussia. The 
few secondary schools w^hich undertake the entire 

- 165 - 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

charge of children are of ancient foundation, and 
enjoy an excellent reputation both socially and 
educationally. 

The idea has been revived with some persistence 
since the war. In order to replace the elite now 
engulfed in the general cataclysm, a " selection " is to 
be made among poor children and the war orphans, 
and the " gifted " among them are to be enabled to 
pass to higher study and to higher opportunity 
(Atifstieg der BegaUen).^ Now, these boarding- 
schools can and will be used as nurseries for future 
officials, scholars, and officers, with even better 
results than the primary elementary standardized 
and common school {Emheitsschule) conjoined with 
the secondary school. It is certainly striking to see 
Prussian Germany come back to an idea which can 
boast of the patronage of the French Revolution. 
Only in this case the move has not been made by a 
democracy which has just shaken off its fetters and 
thinks it right to take upon itself the care of 
the latent national forces, but by a Government 
composed of men of one caste who are anxious to 

maintain their position as rulers of the State. 
^ ^ ^ 

To sum up : the Prussian Administration is 
asking for credit. ^ It will not abolish the classical 

* See above, Chapter IV, p. iii and following pages. 

2 Its need for credit is all the greater on account of the 
far more important matters which will engage its atten- 
tion after the war. This is a point which Paul Harms in 

— i66 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

gymnasium. " Let no one therefore ask it to 
eliminate from the curriculum the very subjects 
which give this type of school its ideal value and its 
superior character." 

In return, it will turn the gymnasium into a really 
national school, a training place for citizens of the 
German State, able to defend it at the point of the 
sword, to administer it, and to further the growth of 
its material power and its moral and scientific 
glory." 

These are no doubt fine promises for a Prussian 
Government to give, but it will be interesting to see 
whether they will be capable of keeping alive in the 
Germany of to-morrow, exhausted and vanquished 
as she will be, that fanatical nationalism which has 
precipitated her towards the present catastrophe. 
Prussia and Bismarck between them led the German 
people along this fatal road. As early as 1882, 
Constantin Frantz pointed out the dangers which 
would thus be incurred both in the field of foreign 
politics and at home.^ 

Prof. F. W. Foerster, of the University of Munich, 

has been publicly disowned for having forcibly 

pointed out, since the war, the fatal consequences 

of the movement both for education and for the 

future of the German race. The Austrian poet, 

Grillparzer, had predicted the result in this tragic 

the Berliner Tageblatt of January 25, 1916, tried to bring 
home to over-zealous reformers. 

^ Deutsche Weltpolitik (German world policy : Chemnitz, 
1882). 

— 167 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

phrase : " From humanity via nationahty to besti- 
aHty/'i 

The Germans have been pleased to arouse the 
" sacro egoismo " of the European nations in opposi- 
tion to their aggressive nationaUsm. Some persons 
have pleaded in their newspapers for a " return " 
(Umkehr) and a '' new orientation " {N eiiorientir- 
ung). The question is, will Germany ever consent 
to such a thing ? Greek Antiquity, even more than 
Christianity, seemed to be a common ground on 
which the nations might meet, for Greek Antiquity 
is the root from which sprang the civilization of 
them all. ^ The recent attacks on the classical humani- 
ties and the earliest official and ofhcious results do 
not promise well for the " future humanism " of the 
Germany of to-morrow. Let us continue to watch 
her schools and the teaching given in them ; the 
system pedagogy thus revealed will prove a sure 
barometer whereby to gauge her policy. 

^ Von der Humanitdt diirch die Nationalitdt zuv Bes- 
tialitdt. 

2 In June, 1916, de Berzeviczy, the President of the 
Academy of Science of Hungary, gave a lecture to the 
Viennese Union of " the Friends of the Classical Gymnasium 
in Austria," on the theme, " Humanism and the World- 
war." It will be the mission of the humanities, and 
especially of the Greek humanities, to reconcile the civil- 
ized nations after the war [Vossische Zeitung, June 13, 
1 916). 



168 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 



CHAPTER VI 
The Political Role of the Universities 

AT the end of July 1914, while an enthusiastic 
crowd was gathered in Unter-den-Linden to 
await the fateful nod of the " All-highest War Lord," 
the professors of the University of Berlin had met 
together to appoint a new Rector. They too showed 
anxiety. But it was only anxiety to learn whether 
William 11 had not at the last moment flinched from 
facing the consequences of his decision. They knew 
his temperament with its mixture of impulsiveness 
and timidity. The clamour of the mob from outside 
re-assured them. It was the call to arms. " The 
flash of enthusiasm," says a witness/ "was caught 
up by the learned conclave. Those of long standing, 
and who had seen 1870 and even 1866, were not the 
last to show a burning zeal. The University of 
Berlin lived through moments to be mentioned with 
pride side by side with the memorable days of the 
wars of freedom." 

German professors are never weary of comparing 
1914 with 1813. To give an idea of the eagerness of 
the Volunteers of 1915, hastening to join the colours, 
^ Vossische Zeitung, July 28, 1915. 
— 169 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

they instance how Niebuhr had described the rising 
against Napoleon. The historian had compared it 
" to crowds who rush to the bakers' shops in time of 
famine." 

This simile could not fail to impress those who were 
present at the daily " Polonaison "^ danced by the 
populace of Berlin, since 1914, in front of the pro- 
vision shops to secure food. There have been 
years, especially in the Universities, when all were 
bent upon calling back to memory the " glorious " 
epoch of liberation. It was an episode in history 
more easy to avow than the trick of the telegram 
from Ems, and its romantic vein lent itself to the 
patriotic staging set up everywhere in view of the 
world-wide preponderance of Germany. 

Nevertheless, the Germany of the twentieth 
century, united and free, rich and powerful, was in 
no way a reminder of the same Germany crushed and 
beaten by Napoleon. The Empire newly restored 
to life knew no shackles except the resistance of the 
free nations against the foreign sway. Wilhelm II 
is said to be as irresolute and as enamoured of peace 
as was his ancestor a century before. But while 
history has imputed it for righteousness to such men 
as Fichte and Boeckh that they aided Frederick 
William III to rouse up his energy so lately sapped 
by humiliation, it will on the other hand severely 

^ This expression has been invented by the BerUn papers 
to describe the movements of the crowds formed up before 
the provision shops. 

— 170 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

judge their successors and imitators, who, ruled over 
as they are by a monarch who is a weak poHtician, 
have left the generous impulses of the German people 
towards a liberal and peaceful emancipation to 
languish in Prussian prisons. 

It was Bismarck who riveted the last links of the 
chain which has enslaved the German Universities 
to the policy of the Hohenzollerns. Since 1870 
they have exerted an intense political activity ^ in 
order to consolidate and aggrandize the Empire 
knowing it to have been called into being by an act 
of violence, and to be only maintainable by a like 
means. Their scientific activity has certainly en- 
abled them to forge engines of war both unheard-of 
and barbarous. But their crowning crime is to have 
fashioned, by dint of learning and method, the 
incredible state of mind which can speak of " scraps 
of paper," and to have overthrown ^ throughout a 
whole nation the elementary notions on which 
modern society is founded. The German Universi- 
ties, zealous in the service of Bismarck and Moltke, 
have employed all their resources in preparing the 

^ Staatshewusste nationale Stimmungsmache. The news- 
papers use a term which lends itself better, i.e. Brunnen- 
vergiftung, " poisoning of the wells," in order to denote the 
action of troubling the springs of thought and of inflaming 
pubhc opinion by " infamous reports " and by imagination 
calculated to produce a desired effect. 

^ University men of repute have discoursed on these 
subversions of traditional values, Umwertung der Werte, 
Umlernen, etc., but in a sense denoting " progress." 

— 171 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

violent attack of Germanism against the Latin, 
Anglo-Saxon and Slavonic world. The dangerous 
tradition of Deutschland iiber alles in der Welt is 
the work of their professors. The military party 
had need of this superstition in order to retain their 
power over the Government to drag the nation with 
them towards the bloody quarry. The effect 
produced in July, 1914, by the official impostors of 
" the Fatherland attacked," was their first " war 
triumph." 



Ninety-three intellectuals, for the most part 
professors of Universities, were found ready in 
October, 1914, to fling the following formidable He 
in the face of the civilized world. 

"It is not true that Germany caused this war. 
Neither the people, nor the Government, nor the 
Emperor desired it. On the German side the 
impossible was attempted in order to prevent it. 
Of this the whole world has authentic proof. How 
many times has not Wilhelm II shown, during the 
twenty-six years of his reign, that he was the pro- 
tector of the world's peace ? Our enemies have 
acknowledged it often themselves. The truth is 
that this same Emperor, whom they now dare to look 
on as an Attila, has for many lustres been the 
object of their mockery only on account of his 
unshakable love for peace. Only when a superior 
force, long on the watch near the frontier, fell upon 

— 172 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

our country from three sides, only then did the 
German people rise as one man." 

It matters little that among the signatures there 
were some of noblemen of small importance ; that 
the compliance of certain of them was obtained by 
surprise ; that shame got the better of others. 
Every one knows how great is the influence of 
Harnack,^ Willamowitz-Moellendorf, and a dozen 
others, like them, all illustrious professors and well- 
known courtiers. Harnack understood by the very 
language of the leaders that the signatories spoke 
in the name of all their caste, and that the uncon- 
ditional abdication of German science in favour of 
the policy of the Government and the military 
camarilla was final. 

German science has been, from this moment, an 
object of suspicion. The humanitarian idealism 
which won sympathy on account of the brutal repres- 
sion it suffered in the course of the nineteenth 
century, and especially in 1848, has now been " un- 
learnt " ; objectivity, the inexorable discipline of 
scientific methods, even honesty, are less than ever 
the monopoly of trans-Rhenish learning. Science, 
held captive by a creed even more exacting than the 
Christian faith, has become as cruel as was the latter 

1 If the theologian, His Excellent Herr von Harnack 
(a native of the Baltic provinces like Kant, whom he in- 
vokes), is not the sole author of the manifesto, it would 
appear that he collaborated in its composition. The tone 
of it towards the end is sufficiently pastoral. 

— 173 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

during its most acute paroxysms of orthodoxy. 
The German people are " the chosen " of the " old 
Teutonic god," to spread the gospel of its " Kultur," 
either by gentle or violent means. Its mission is to 
save Europe and the world, by its virtues, physical, 
intellectual and moral, from the decrepitude of effete 
civilizations, and to preserve it from the Slavonic 
menace and the Asiatic peril. " Take our word for 
it," cried the ninety-three to their hesitating col- 
leagues and to the astounded world, " we will pledge 
our name and our honour to prove our saying true." 
Germany took them at their word. She grasped the 
sword made ready for the crusade of blood. But 

the world has rejected the imposture. 
* * * 

Towards the middle of July, a sinister agitation 
was afoot in the lecture halls of the University of 
Berlin. The students seemed to be looking some- 
thing steadily in the face. Meeting each other in 
the corridors, the question asked was no longer : 
'' Are you going to enlist ? " ; but " Where will you 
join up ? " At the other end of the empire, at 
Tubingen, that peaceful Swabian University so dear 
to theologians, the students' quarters resounded from 
the time of the Austrian ultimatum with war songs 
dating from the war of liberation. 

On the 26th, their Austrian comrades were called 
up, by telegraph. The tumultuous demonstrations 
in favour of war then reached the street, and were 
continued in front of the dwellings of the rector, the 

— 174 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

burgomaster and the military commander. The 
uproar by day and by night was so great, that the 
" PhiHstines " who were still " hoping " (i.e. that 
nothing would come of it) were obliged to request 
the authorities to put a stop to such patriotic orgies. 

Both students and professors had stolen a march 
on the civilians. The " intellectuals " felt no 
surprise at the course of events which coincided 
with their desires. To them it will for ever be 
impossible to invoke the excuse of patriotism at bay : 
" right or wrong, my country. ' ' They attempted every- 
thing to prevent German ambitions from " sticking 
in the mud of peace palaver." They were only 
waiting for the signal. " Large sections of society 
greeted the crime of Sarajevo as the God-sent oppor- 
tunity." 1 

Certain University men of distinction whom Wil- 
helm II admitted to his table managed to turn to 
good account what they had observed of their host 
in moments of intimacy. They knew him to be 
inconsistent, fond of bold strokes (witness the 
journey to Tangiers), but drawing back at once 
before the consequences of his impulsive acts. They 
found fault with the " staunch love of peace," not 
only by pamphlets more or less anonymous, or by 
accusing foreign caricaturists of " making fun of 
him," but above all by exaggerating the dangers, 
exterior and interior, which according to them this 

^ Liebknecht, speaking in the Prussian Chamber on 
March i6, 191 5. 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

lover of peace would draw do^^'n on the empire in 
days to come. 

Their scientific demonstrations [Kultur-histonsche 
Untersuchungen) on the reality of the culture-bearing 
mission of the German race, did but nurse and 
encourage the innate megalomania of Wilhelm II 
and at the same time point out to him his dut3^ 

And then were they not also the natural allies of 
the army, whose aspirations were blended and one 
with their own, and have they not always worked 
together for the unification of the German counties, 
" for the Emperor and the Empire " (fur Kaiser und 
Reich) ? 

The minds of the " select few " were as completely 

prepared as was the military organization. The 

phantom of the empire at bay was created by the 

same theorists who had invented and preached the 

" inevitable " expansion of " DeutschHtm." By 

signing, " in good faith," as they would fain have 

us now believe, the call to arms for the defence of 

the violated Fatherland, they have shown themselves 

to be the accomplices of a political and traditional 

expedient which was meant to gain over the " philis- 

tines " and the populace, and still more to enable 

Germany to make the greatest and most merciless 

use of the anticipated victory. 

* * * 

One had got into the habit of seeing nothing more 
in the German Universities than the univcrsitas 
litterarum et scientiarum, in which masters and 

— 176 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

studious pupils accumulated, with pedantic care, even 
the most trifling facts which might help to widen 
human knowledge. Their copious and elaborated 
methods were taken as models, and the professors' 
independence of thought and speech, and their 
freedom in research and instruction, were much 
vaunted. But sufficient attention was not paid to 
the close union between the Universities on the one 
hand and the directing hierarchy of the Universities. 
The preponderating influence assumed by the 
University of Berlin on the federal states especially 
since 1870 has been onl}^ too often forgotten. 

It was in no way the intention of the Hohenzol- 
lerns, when laying hands on the elementary and 
secondary schools, to allow their Universities to live 
as republics. Rather, they endowed them with 
their names and their patronage. Being poor, 
though playing the part of Maecenas, they assured 
to them, together with all sorts of honours, the 
munificence of the public funds. Without neglecting 
the moral power of the Church (Bismarck for having 
attempted this was forced to go to Canossa) they 
made that of the Universities even greater. They 
will therefore be more docile in justifying the policy 
of their prince and more national in paving the way 
for it than the Catholic Church has shown herself 
at certain periods. The King is de facto the Grand 
Master of his Universities. He makes a point of seeing 
that only those who think as he wishes shall teach 
therein. The right. of professorial colleges to receive 

— 177 — M 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

into their body colleagues of their own choosing is 
subject to royal sanction. Bismarck obtruded upon 
them appointments against which the most indignant 
remonstrances remained powerless. Before him, 
Prussian Governments had not scrupled to send to 
prison masters from the higher scholastic institutions 
who thought themselves free, by right of office, to 
profess opinions contrary to those of the authorities. 
Except for this subjection to the Emperor, the 
King and the Government, the Universities are free 
and made much of. Financial considerations are 
never an obstacle, when it is a question of attracting 
some specialist by offering him the stipend he 
demands, of splitting up the classes, or of stocking 
libraries and collections and of increasing the 
number of laboratories. There lies the secret of the 
innumerable and rapid practical applications of 
science by which the army profits as much as does 
industry and trade ; and here lies also the cause of 
the extravagant publicity which has served to spread 
abroad and exalt Deutschtum both within and beyond 
the German frontiers. 



The governing body of BerHn have never made a 
mystery of the political mission of their Universities. 

After Jena the Prussian treasury was empty and 
the resources of the country exhausted. None the 
less Friedrich Wilhelm founded two Universities, one 

— 178 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

at Berlin in 1810 and one at Breslau ^ a year later. 
The name of Fichte alone would have justified the 
founding of the Berlin University. The influence of 
Breslau on the political dealings of Prussia in relation 
to Russia and Austria has ended in the enterprise 
which is now the objective of the armies on the 
eastern front. 

Bismarck created the University of Strasburg even 
before he had given a constitution to the annexed 
country. He placed it under the immediate patron- 
age of the Emperor. He desired it to be grand and 
imposing. The most distinguished lights of German 
science were sent there, tempted by stipends which 
would have seduced the least patriotic among them. 
Opposite to the University, he erected the imperial 
" burg " (citadel) and close by it the Parliament. 
As far as the Landesausschuss was concerned on July 
14, 1876, the Alsatian deputies, in great humility, 
dared to express their uneasiness at the charges 
thrown on the poor local budget by the construction 
and upkeep of the University buildings : they were 
answered from the ministerial bench, as follows : 
" The University has not been founded for Alsace- 
Lorraine, but in the interests of the empire." This 
was stated, moreover, in the foundation title deeds, 
and emphatically repeated, inter pocida at the 
solemnities of the inauguration, in the presence of 
the highest personages of the empire. The small 

1 By the incorporation of an ancient foundation (1701) 
with that of Frankfurt -on-the-Oder. 

- 179 -- 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

nation of Alsace-Lorraine has resisted this high- 
handed Germanization, in spite of or rather because 
of the zeal of the apostles of the University. The 
Stadthalter of Strasburg and the Central Government 
at Berlin, might have saved themselves the trouble of 
calhng into consultation the j urists of the University 
and of listening to the philologists, historians and 
theologians, who, with a great re-inforcement of 
ancient documents, fixed and decided the best manner 
of alienating the original population. The political 
aspect of the Strasburg University has proved a 
lamentable check-mate for the Germans, unless they 
see in it a success, in so far as it has kept alive their 
particular hatred of the hereditary enemy of the west. 

On the eve of his departure for the front, July 14, 
1914, Wilhelm II insisted on having the writs signed 
appointing the professors to the latest new-comer 
among German Universities, that of Frankfurt-on- 
the-Main. 

The citizens of this ancient free city, patricians of 
finance, commerce, and local manufactures, had 
been inspired by civic patriotism to assure to their 
city the prosperity to which they themselves owed 
their wealth. With the surplus of their fortunes 
they had founded institutions everywhere spoken of 
as models of their kind ; for instance, the Rothschild 
Library, the clinics and laboratories where Ehrlich 
carried on his research, the Academy of Economic 
and Commercial Sciences, etc. Their independent 
and local existence does not seem to have hampered 

— 180 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

the development of these foundations. But the 
centrahzing spirit of the Germans of the empire can 
in no wise tolerate anything which calls to mind the 
particularism of old times, and still less the indivi- 
dualism of the English or Americans. Thus a 
politically minded burgomaster conceived the plan 
of bringing together the scattered elements so as to 
form a University, ostensibly to strengthen them 
by union and by giving them the standing indis- 
pensable to the glory of his town, but in truth to 
open the Frankfurt institution to the influence of 
other German Universities. The pompous cere- 
monies of the opening were put off till after the war, 
in order to allow the Emperor to come in person to 
consecrate this new centre of science to the service 
of the empire and of his House. 

Scarcely had the German armies possessed them- 
selves of Belgium and Poland than the military 
commanders Von Bissing and Von Beseler turned 
their attention respectively to opening the University 
of Ghent, and to reorganizing that of Warsaw. The 
occupation of these countries being prolonged, 
alas ! the lieutenants of Wilhelm II have been able to 
carry out in part the orders they received from Berlin. 
The means which they employed to gain over the 
more intelligent population of the invaded countries, 
going from hypocritical promises to constraint by 
violence,^ prove conclusively that a University, 

^ For these very German methods the equally German 
phrase is Zucker und Peitsche (sugar and whips). 

— l8l — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

according to the German conception, is only a 

political instrument for slavery and domination. 
* * * 

*'The University of Berlin camped opposite the Kings 
palace is the intellectual guard of the House of Hohen- 
zollern." So exclaimed Professor du Bois-Reymond 
of Berlin, in a speech made on August 5,1870. This 
duty of guardianship Bismarck, and after him 
Wilhelm II, have divided among all the Universities 
of the empire and even those lying beyond it. The 
exchange of professors and students that the Univer- 
sities of German formation and language continue to 
arrange among themselves across the political 
frontiers, has facilitated this expression. 

No country in the world has established the 
" radiating " system of Universities on so methodical 
a basis. The centre is at Berlin. The professors, 
honoured with the title of privy councillors of State, 
both ordinary and extraordinary, received at court 
and influential in the higher administrations, give 
the tone to their colleagues of Leipzig, Munich, 
Tiibingen and Heidelberg, etc. As far as the Univer- 
sities are concerned, particularism — Bismarck's night- 
mare — has ceased to exist. 

The influence of imperial professors makes itself 
felt in Austria Hungary, in German Switzerland and 
beyond throughout the Balkans and as far as 
Constantinople. The serfdom of Austro-Hungary 
is complete, thanks to the defenders it has found in 
the professorial chairs of the Dual Monarchy. A 

— 182 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

whole gang of German doctors have been labouring, 
since war began, at the organization of the Univer- 
sity of Constantinople. 

Concurrently with this expanding, the German 
Universities increase their strength by concentrating 
their operations. At this moment there may be 
observed in Germany a tendency to incorporate 
with the real Universities, the academies and schools 
for special study (Hochschulen), technical schools* 
schools of mining and of forestry, agricultural 
colleges, veterinary colleges, commercial schools, 
colonial institutes, schools of tropical medicines, 
of naval architecture and the like. There was 
a time when these establishments were regarded 
with a certain disdain by University men. 
But now that the admission to these schools 
has been made dependent on the possession of the 
leaving certificate of a secondary school, and that 
they have obtained the privilege of conferring a 
Doctor's Degree, a marked junction has been effected. 
Even before the war, certain of the Universities, 
Berlin and Leipzig for example, had incorporated 
with themselves the provincial higher schools, even 
when they lay outside the seat of the said Universi- 
ties. This arrangement was desired for educa- 
tional and government reasons. The Universities 
strengthen their theoretical teaching of pure sciences 
by institutes of practical science, while technical 
schools complete the student's practical knowledge 
by instruction. 

- 183 - 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

But Germany does not centralize for reasons of 
economy, so as to avoid paying for the same thing 
twice : she does it to increase the output of her 
strength and to have it well in hand in case of need. ^ 
The services rendered by the practical schools are 
made the most of in favour of this concentration. ^ 
In this we see the principal source of the subsequent 
might of the empire solidly concentrated. The 
Faculties of the natural sciences with their annexes 
of laboratories, institutes for research ^ work and 
practical schools, will furnish the instrumental force. 
To the Faculties of philosophical and historical 
science will be added institutes of a like nature,^ in 
order not to let intellectual and moral force fall into 
decay. The two forces dovetail into each other, 
their action is mutual. This is " Kultur." 

Thus is fulfilled the prayer of the too famous 
Professor Lamprecht, of Leipzig, the historian of 
Wilhelm II and the prophet of Pan-Germanism. His 
cry was " Let the Universities endeavour to feel their 



^ Unsere Hochschulen, und die Auforderungen des 20 
J ahrhunderts , by Professor Reidler (1898). 

2 Zusammenfassung des Hochschiilbetriebs , by Dr. E. 
Uetrecht {Tdgliche Rundschau, September 25, 1916). 

^ The extra-university institutes, such as the " Wilhelm 
II foundation " and the imperial dependencies of the great 
industries may be classed with these bodies. 

* For instance, the twelve institutes of historical, philo- 
logical and geographical sciences, etc., etc., founded at 
Leipzig by Lamprecht. 

— 184 — 



As A WAR NURSERY 

way more speedily towards the new end in view, 
inevitable because Jounded on German culture.'* 

Of this said " Kultur " the Universities are the 
factories. The management is entrusted to the 
professors. All that they do and produce there, 
in apparent liberty, is done and produced for their 
employer, the State. The individual is benefited 
by " Kultur," but only on condition that it is 
through the medium of the State. There is nothing 
democratic about it. The individual is human 
matter to be thoroughly kneaded into shape {durch- 
kneten). The typical German, individualistic and 
idealistic, has too long been left to himself and has 
therefore remained the despised " Hodge " in spite 
of the part he has played in history and in the 
civilization of Europe ; he must have his place in 
the sun, respected in every part of the globe to 
which he is pleased to go, and must be able to speak 
with authority. For he has the right so to do by 
virtue of his " Kultur," which also will permit him 
to achieve these ends with strength and ability, 
since it teaches him to submit unreservedly and 
" joyfully " to the order and discipline which, thanks 
to the army, the State has set up so as to be strong 
in his stead. 

The army is the last word of that " Kultur," 
which the German Universities seek to spread abroad. 
Science, which is the essence of all culture, of what- 
ever sort, allows itself no other form of expansion 
but in nationalizing itself in the service of the prince- 

- 185 - 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

" To knead human material by a scientifically 
exact instrumental force, having nevertheless within 
itself its own life and movement, as represented in 
the highest degree of perfection by our army. This 
is what has been obtained by the guiding collabora- 
tion of German science, which has innoculated the 
entire body of the nation with the stimulating 
lymph of a more emphatic and clearer consciousness 
of itself. "1 

" The seeds which the German Universities have 
nourished with so much care have grown up to full 
stature during this war. The ancient spirit of love 
for the Fatherland which showed itself during the 
wars of freedom has ever since been cultivated in 
the Universities. In the management of the present 
war, modern military teaching unites with this 
spirit, with this consciousness of ourselves and this 
power of action : it is the mobilization of all science."^ 

There are two estimates of the work accomplished 
by the German Universities. Both are founded on the 
experiences of the war. The first was drawn up in 
July, 1915, by a member of a University for the 
readers of the Liberal Vossische Zeitung. The second 
is likewise from the hand of a University man, who 
addressed himself in September, 1916, to the orthodox 

^ The Vossische Zeitung, July 12, 1915. Deutschlands 
Hochschulen im Kriege, by Franz Servaes, collaborator of 
the Vossische Zeitung, the accredited organ of the higher 
teaching body. 

2 Dr. E. Uetrecht, at the beginning of the article in 
the Tdgliche Rundschau already quoted. 

— 1S6 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

Nationalist readers of the Tdgliche Rundschau. One 
would take them to be from the same pen. 

The Universities are proud of having furnished 
the army with " scientifically exact instrumental 
forces " in a supreme degree of perfection. Big guns, 
submarines and airships are, most certainly, scientific 
marvels and worthy of admiration, but the patriotic 
spirit of Germany has irremediably compromised 
itself in association with " a modern military tech- 
nique " which makes use of the diabolical measures 
of asphyxiating gases and liquid fire. These 
-^resources are not found on the spur of the moment. 
The fact of employing them of set purpose, without 
necessity and in the face of promises given, shows that 
the other preparation, the intellectual and moral 
preparing, must have marched side by side with the 
instrumental preparations. " Kultur " makes up a 
homogeneous whole. 

It makes one shudder to think how greatly the 
concentration of all higher tuition will enable the 
training of cultivated minds to be intensified in order 
to help forward the egoistical aims of an irresponsible 
Government. 

The Universities and high schools for special study 
take " the human material to be kneaded " from the 
flower of the nation. They prepare students for the 
higher and middle ranks of the Administration, for 
the magistrature, for the higher professorships, for 
the ministry, for liberal professions and for important 
employments in commerce and industry. 

— 187 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

Rare indeed are the young men who on their 
arrival at the University do not become enrolled in 
one of the numerous associations, which are linked 
together and spread from one University to another, 
forming a sort of vast Masonic Covenant. Nothing 
remains of local recruiting, except the memory 
which is preserved in the name and device on the 
banners of some of the oldest of these associations. 
The spirit of particularism, of old times, has disap- 
peared from among the youth of the University. 
Nevertheless groupings are to be seen, as in all 
Society, and these are determined by social position 
or by the employment of their affiliated members. 
There are Universities which receive none but noble- 
men ; certain are for the rich, others for middle- 
class citizens ; there are some for the studious, 
and others for members of this or that religious 
body ; but none acknowledge themselves as poli- 
tical. In all of them staunch friendships are made 
for life. And over them all waves " the ancient 
banner of patriotic love, as in the time of the wars 
of liberation." 

The younger members, at the outset of their 
curriculum, knowing the initial year to be in any 
case lost to their studies, make this their year of 
military service and thus keep up the general 
enthusiasm. Old members, who have made their 
way in life, come every now and then to carouse 
with their young " brothers," and assure them of 
their solidarity, but also to remind them that the 

— i88 - 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

country is counting on them. Bismarck and the 
Emperor never failed to keep up this tradition. No 
old student has ever disowned the colours of his corps- 

The young students on their side — the present 
members — do not forget their honorary members. 
It cannot be said that a political or civic spirit, 
properly so-called, is formed in these associations. 
But patriotic spirit, national, nay even nationalistic 
spirit, and unreserved and disciplined loyalism, are 
all fostered by them. That is all that the Govern- 
ment desires. Its most cultured adversaries have 
never on that account been the most formidable- 
Bismarck got the better of Windthorst, who, in the 
opinion of many Germans, was his superior as a 
politician. In 1914 the Socialist " doctors " were the 
first to throw away their principles, and to drag their 
party, which was before committed to an irreducible 
opposition, into the train of an Emperor and Govern- 
ment in whose eyes they have never been anything 
but " enemies of the country." 

In the German " war literature " the Universities 
take the leading part. The daily press has at no 
time published so many articles of political bearing 
signed by " doctors " and " professors both ordinary 
and extraordinary " of all branches. The Censor 
has nothing to say against them. Those who have 
neither written nor spoken in public lose all esteem ; 
they have stifled their science and their conscience 
by sheltering their want of courage behind the 
" civic truce." 

— 189 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

The others have applauded the acts of the Govern- 
ment. The historians by profession have gone the 
farthest astray. ^ Eminent lawyers have propped 
up the theory of " scraps of paper " by impudent 
sophisms. They have, by artful " interpretations " 
as false as they were shameless, justified the violation 
of Belgium, the monstrous crimes of the soldiery, 
and the flagrant faihng in respect of treaties. By 
their showing, Germany alone has respected inter- 
national law. 

On the other hand, in University centres there 
has not been the smallest manifestation of moral 
rectitude or of objectivity, or of liberty, all so much 
vaunted, which might be regarded as a protest. No 
authorized minority of intellectuals, not even an 
individual of unquestioned position, has stood up 
to object. 2 

We could have said as much. The Parliament 
remained free. Some rather violent opposition 
speeches of a censorious character were made there. 
But even in the yells of impotent rage uttered by 
the Socialist minority, most of whom have not 
enjoyed a University education, we should seek in 
vain for one single mention of a University man 

^ The criticisms of " J 'accuse " by the German Univer- 
sities fully reveal how prejudiced are the minds of their 
authors. 

2 The novel Inferno, by E. Stilgebauer, appeared at 
Basle and has been forbidden in Germany : The appeals 
of Romain Rolland have had deceptive echoes. See below, 
p. 208, the opinions of Prof. F. W. Foerster. 

— 190 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

having had the courage to make his voice heard on 
the side of right, justice and humanity. 

From Christian pulpits ministers of God have 
sanctified the barbarous excesses of the war by 
quotations from the Bible. The German bishops 
have disdainfully rejected the appeal of their 
Belgian brethren for Christian forbearance. The 
deputy pastor Dr. Traub, of Diisseldorf, a Liberal (!), 
in a publication bearing the significant title Eiserne 
Blatter (iron leaves) preaches a hatred of the enemy 
which has nothing evangelical about it. 

The teachers in secondary schools, etc., began, as 
early as August 1914 a campaign without precedent. ^ 
To them the time seems to have come finally to 
purge German pedagogy of any tendency that 
might be described as generally human. Does not 
German " Kultur " when enriched and purified 
by national progress comprehend the most precious 
essentials of an antique culture ? As to the arts 
and the literature of modern nations, Germany 
has much better to show. What is there to wait 
for ? Why not use the German national school, 
placed under the safe authority of Berlin, to train 
German men and women and to bring them up so 
as to achieve miHtary efficiency [wehrhaft und 
kriegstiichtig), and to reinforce the flower of the 
governing body by the admission into professions of 
the best elements of the people ? 

Manufacturers, merchants and landowners have 

^ See Chapter V. 
— 191 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

formally called upon the Chancellor to relinquish 
none of the territory occupied by the German army. 
Having learnt their cue in the upper technical 
schools they go on obeying their masters. One of 
them, the author of Mitteleuropa, has outlined the 
programme of their ambitions. Others have already 
established themselves at Ghent and at Constantin- 
ople, to prepare the commercial routes to Antwerp 

and Bagdad. 

* * * 

Certainly the seed sown broadcast by the Ger- 
man universities has yielded well. It has indeed 
yielded too luxuriantly and has choked off the 
harvest. The learned doctors of Berlin do not 
know what to make of it. The propaganda which 
they have been organizing with such care and 
method throughout the whole world since the 
first days of the war, has convinced no one of the 
justice of the German cause and the blessings of 
" Kultur." In their very midst the excesses of 
zealots threaten to compromise both the science 
and the German cause. They have sown the 
" dragon's teeth round the golden fleece." 

Let us beware of believing them willing and ready 
to make a frank return to the Germany of Bismarck^ 
or of Goethe, ^ advocated by some. If we believed 
them we should be mistaking the nature of the 
nationalist pride, which has bewildered the wisest 

^ It was a University man, a professor of theology, who 
protested pubhcly against this watchword. 

— 192 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

of them. Let us rest content to keep a record of 
the denials of their political excesses which they 
have issued almost in the guise of avowals. 

A short time before his death Professor E. Siepert 
who taught the English language and literature at 
the Munich University, published in the Berliner 
Tageblatt ^ a very honest article on the " duties of 
patriotism." The abundant war literature against 
England, which this learned teacher of English had 
seen come to light within a year, had filled him with 
aversion and sadness. " The false generalization/' 
he wTites, '' the partial and exaggerated judgments 
to be found in the much talked of book by Eduard 
Meyer, titular Professor of Ancient History at the 
Berlin University, are little fitted to enhance respect 
for German science." 

Another critic, also a University man, thus begins 
his report of the same book. ^ " The natural 
sciences and their applications, have, owing to the 
war, achieved results, notably in Germany, which 
they could not have reached but after long years 
in the supine development of peace. But we 
may remark that the abstract sciences which 
are in nowise so vital to the interests of the coun- 
try have in a like manner hastened their move- 
ments in order to readjust themselves anew.^ A 

^ October 30, 1915. See also the Mercure de France, 
February 10, 1916, p. 586. 

2 Dr. B. Guttmann, in the Frankfurter Zeitung, Nov. 14, 

1915- 

^ Umlernen, to unlearn in order to learn over again, to 

— 193 — I^ 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

new science, born of the war, is in the making and 
is setting to work to repaint the former image of 
the world according to the experience of the last 
fifteen months. It would appear that, on August i, 
1914, the scales fell from the eyes of not a few philo- 
sophers, historians and writers. They instantly 
hastened to spread abroad their new-found know- 
ledge. Those who did not know it then, have now 
learnt how precarious were the demonstrations in 
the science of civilization, in spite of the exactness 
of the methods employed. And as the same 
small number of contemporary official documents 
have been interpreted by the learned of diverse 
nations in such a radically different manner, what 
warrant have we that in the matter of Egyptian 
papyrus or Moabitish inscriptions we may not be 
deluding ourselves with most disquieting mysti- 
fications ? Unhappily it has also become clear that 
those who have been searching after truth during 
their whole lives have not found in it an antidote 
to their own prejudices." 

The author of these lines would be no true German 
if he did not imply that he shared his disenchant- 
ment with all the learned bodies of the world, 
especially with the French and English. But he 

change one's method of study. The German war language 
has coined new terms of this type to express the new trend 
of the pubUc mind and the fresh aspect of things : Umzver- 
ten is to put a different construction on things from what 
was done in the past. 

— 194 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

was brought to it by an overwhelming criticism of a 
book written by a professor who was deemed worthy 
to succeed the great Mommsen in the chair of 
history at the University of Berhn. The blow 
which he aims at the Berlin savant strikes all of 
those of his colleagues, and their name is legion, 
who in the matter of this war have brought German 
official history into grave discredit. 

Herr Meyer, as far as we know, has made re- 
search into the first origin of European civilization 
his speciality. On the other hand his knowledge 
of the English language is very small, and it is only 
by hear-say that he has any acquaintance with the 
political and social institutions of Great Britain. 
However, this did not prevent him, as a champion 
of German " Kultur " and a fervent admirer of 
the Prussian political regime, from writing a few 
weeks after, under the influence of anger, a so- 
called scientific and hence scathing condemnation 
of the social and political development of the 
English people. Let us await the moment when 
his science will justify the French and Belgian 
deportations by that of the Jews under Nebuchad- 
nezzar. 

Well, it now seems that the learned archaeologist 
of Susiana has cooled down. Not long ago, when the 
Prussian Minister of Education, yielding to pressure 
from the Nationalists, gave orders that modern 
German history should be taught in the schools as 
widely as possible, to the exclusion of other sub- 

— 195 - 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

jects if need be, apprehension arose in the minds 
of certain historians, and to this Herr Meyer was 
no exception. Did they find out that badly taught 
national history is the surest road to that jingoism 
and chauvinism with which they have so often 
reproached their enemies ? And did they under- 
stand that the masters of historical criticism, by 
jumbling up their science with the casuistry of 
nationalist proselytism, are on the verge of making 
a disastrous political hoax of historiography and 
" Kultur." 

On the other hand, the classical philologists 
have been roused by the violent attacks started 
on every side, and often in their own camp, against 
the ancient classical humanities which are considered 
to be " too unreal and utterly useless to the 
German Fatherland." 

Neo-philologists have been forced to protest 
against the iconoclast fury which insists on the 
root and branch proscription of the languages, 
the Hterature and the art of England, France and 
Italy. 

Those who wish to turn these much-vaunted 
German schools into " schools of non-commissioned 
officers with a little science thrown in," are not the 
ranters we might take them for. They are stu- 
dents, the true children of the Universities. And 
this singular state of mind has been created by the 
masters of these Universities. German science 
has stepped out of its sphere by entering on a politi- 

— 196 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

cal career. Instead of leaving professional politi- 
cians to achieve the aims pointed out by science, 
the German Universities have let themselves be 
enslaved. It will hardly be an easy task for them 

to retrieve this fatal step. 

* * * 

The first Kriegsrector (War-rector) of the Univer- 
sity of Berlin was the celebrated hellenist U. von 
Willamowitz-Moellendorf, Chief Councillor of State 
and enjoying the title of Excellency. The person- 
ality of the Rector chosen seemed at once a sjanbol 
and a happy omen. His father in-law, the well- 
known historian Mommsen, had unveiled during his 
rectorship the commemorative slab dedicated by 
the University of Berlin to its members who fell in 
1870. His son-in-law had camped outside Paris 
with the grenadiers of the Prussian Guard. Was 
he perhaps destined to celebrate a similar victory 
in 1915 ? As a hellenist he enjoyed a matchless 
reputation. His profound and exclusive learning, 
backed by an exceptional talent in oratory, has 
caused him to be compared with G. de Humboldt, 
A. Boekh and F. A. Wolf. His influence over the 
Universities of his country is unquestioned. Be- 
sides all this, Professor Willamowitz is one of the 
most noted personalities in the highest society. 
The Emperor honours him with particular esteem. 
He has the ear of the Government. For Herr von 
Willamowitz gladly forsakes the serenity of classic 
life to watch the movements of foreign countries, 

— Tpi n — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

whose languages and institutions he knows. To 
that body of the learned who had so honorably 
acknowledged his worth, he gave the impression of 
labouring for a closer union of modern civilization 
round common classical studies, which he knew 
so well how to restore. An English paper lately 
wrote of him that the lectures he held at Oxford had 
done more to establish a good understanding between 
nations than all the political discourses of recent 
times. Such optimism was excessive. 

So the harangues of this eminent " Kriegs-rector " 
were expected with not unreasonable curiosity. 
They did not disappoint the German official and 
learned world. Herr von Willamowitz belongs to 
the country squire class. He is one of the chiefs of 
" Kultur." If he did not take the initiative in the 
manifesto of the ninety-three he was one of the first 
to sign it and to get it signed by his colleagues. He 
employed his learning, his talent, his influence 
and his " rectorial magnificence " to prove to the 
educated society of Berlin — even in the churches 
— " the justice of the German cause," " the aggres- 
sion of the perfidious foreigner," " the intimate 
connexion between science and militarism." These 
harangues whose " verve and conviction " and 
"genial arguments " are much vaunted by German 
newspapers, have been printed, as have many 
others, and are largely circulated in neutral coun- 
tries 

Now the first doubts on the efiiciency of his cam- 

— 198 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

paign appear to come to Herr von Willamowitz 
from outside. He has already found ^ a certain 
section of truth on the enemy side. " Foreign 
Ministers," he says, " are minghng falsehood with 
truth when they speak of the German menace ; 
the Emperor has never threatened any one ; what 
our adversaries felt themselves threatened by, was 
the power, the commerce and the wealth of Ger- 
many." Has not one of the colleagues of Herr von 
Willamowitz tried to prove, not less " genially, " that 
** defensive " and " preventive " are synonymous, 
and by so saying avowed in spite of himself that 
Germany's so-called defensive war was a war stirred 
up by herself ? 

Quite recently another manifesto of the intellec- 
tuals was put into circulation. The papers had 
announced its publication. Herr von Willamowitz, 
who figured among its promoters, preferred, so it 
would seem, to let the matter rest there. 

Still more recently, Herr von Willamowitz has 
felt the need of explaining to the Berlin corre- 
spondent of the Vanguardia of Barcelona, as well as 
to Mr. Ricardo Leon, of the Spanish Academy, 
the full bearing and import of his rectorial orations, 
so that they might notify the same to the com- 
patriots and to the Latin nations of South America. 
His " explanations," spread abroad by the whole 

^ In a speech at the Church of the Trinity at Berhn on 
October 5, 1915, on "The second winter of the war" 
{Lokal-Anzeiger, October 7, 1915). 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

of the German Press in the form of an official com- 
munication, are interesting in the highest degree. 
They are an illustration, slightly shaded off so as 
to fit the circumstances, of the political function 
of German Universities in general. Their aim is to 
forestall the danger of a future withdrawal of 
foreign connexions which might be the result of the 
equivocal attitude of the centres of German science. 
The following are the " explanations " according 
to the Berlin Lokal-Anzeiger, August 29, 1916. 

" This satisfies my own wish to give in a precise 
form to the representatives of Spain and the Latin 
races of South America some explanation of the 
speeches made by me, as Rector of the L^niversity of 
Berlin. What I have stated both as a patriot and 
a man of science, is founded on the philosophical and 
historical doctrine carefully worked out by the 
great German thinkers of a hundred years ago. 
You have the successful results of this doctrine before 
you : they are to be seen in the political and intel- 
lectual progress of Germany. Consequently, this 
doctrine equally holds sway in our Universities. 
Whatever is gained for science belongs not to any 
particular nation, but to all Humanity. Thus 
Greece in the first ages, and since her time the 
Church, have laboured for all, as do now all civilized 
nations (Kulturvolker). If, in a hundred years, 
Germany has succeeded in making great progress 
in every department of science, all nations are 
bound to appropriate to themselves these gains, 

— 200 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

s^ as not to be left behind ; but not because we are 
Germans, but in the interest of science itself. This 
latter possesses the miraculous power of becoming 
all the stronger for being lavishly used. We have 
done so gladly, and there is no occasion to fear that 
your youthful students will in the future receive 
a less friendly welcome at our hands. 

*' It is one of the malicious lies of our enemies to 
assert that we desire to force a political and intel- 
lectual tyranny upon the world. On the contrary,'^ 
our philosophical and historical investigations have 
made it a recognized fact that the welfare and 
advance of human civilization rests on the collabora- 
tion of nations according to the strength and temper 
peculiar to each. Uniformity in the culture of the 
world [Weltkultur) would be a misfortune, even 
if the predominant culture of a people were as 
superior to others as was once Greek civilization, 
or the French civilization in the eighteenth century. 
English sway all over the world would possess such a 
uniformity. Germany is seeking nothing of the kind. 
It is precisely because it has cost us such heavy 
sacrifices to found our national State, while at the 
same time developing that science which rises 
above all national landmarks, that we have learnt 
to estimate the value of the national spirit of envy 

1 The italicized passages are thus emphasized in the 
original. The author has carefully weighed his phrases. 
He stakes much on his play of words, thereby reveaUng 
all the more clearly his real thoughts. 

— 201 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

of every foreign nation. For we Germans may safely 
maintain without fear of being called presumptuous, 
that we know better than any one how to take 
delight in becoming one with the intellectual life 
of a foreign people. 

" I speak to men who express themselves in 
Spanish. I have therefore occasion to enlarge upon 
a subject which should have formed part of my 
second speech but which the shortness of my 
allotted time constrained me to leave out. When 
I say that old Roman rhetoric no longer suffices, 
I mean that I expect from Latin nations a vigorous 
and intellectual forward movement. Each of them 
possesses its own precious store of national strength, 
concealed under the veneer of traditional forms. 
While on this subject I wilHngly add what my 
celebrated colleague, Professor Morf ^ said to me 
even before the war ; he has studied at Madrid, and 
professionally studies modern Spanish literature 
including popular literature. This is what he 
said to me. * In no Latin country as in Spain, at the 
present moment, is such a powerful and lively (frisch), 
intellectual push to he found.' But we ourselves are 
desirous in the future to share your life to a still 
greater extent. The University of Berlin has only 
postponed the solemnities in honour of Cervantes 
on account of the war. At the time of the Jubilee 

^ One of the subscribers to the sorry manifesto of the 
ninety-three ; of Swiss origin, and a pupil of Gaston Paris, 
whose valuable friendship he has possessed. 

— 202 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

of our University, we conferred on M. Cuervo the 
title of Doctor honoris causa, and we laid particular 
and eulogizing stress on the fact that having been born 
in Bogota, he has become a world leader by his 
talent for the study of Spanish dialects both of 
America and of the mother country. And then 
there is Numantia ! E. Saavedra had already 
fixed on the site. The accuracy of this site has 
been confirmed by Ad. Schulten. The Emperor of 
Germany has himself given funds for the excava- 
tions. But when doubt was no longer possible, we 
Germans gave way. We understood quite well that 
Spain had set her heart on excavating this spot of 
national glory, and so we busied ourselves with the 
Roman camps in the neighbourhood of the town. 
The zeal of the Spanish explorers was kindled. They 
now wield the pickaxe in numerous places. This is 
how German science makes it its study to awaken 
national competition : it does not try to stifle it. 

" It is a long way to South America, but technique 
gets the mastery over space. Let us each then 
contribute our quota to draw the nations together. 
We Germans will joyfully greet your young men in 
our Universities, and we are persuaded that in the 
union of our nations, we shall by no means only 
give ; we also gladly receive and learn." 

We must not try to find in these statements a 
withdrawal of the speeches this patriot made to his 
fellow-countrymen. Herr von Willamowitz has 
too much intelligence and learning not to have 

— 203 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

understood the danger of the extravagant apostolate 
to which the German Universities now stand com- 
mitted by means of long training. Does he see 
armed men springing from the dragon's teeth that 
were sown around German science ? It is by no 
means the first time since the Manifesto of the 
ninety-three that he remembers that science is 
international. His last defensive speech resembles 
the quibbling of the cleverer sort of social demo- 
cratic leaders — persons moulded in the Universities 
— to " recapture " the international Socialist so use- 
ful to German politics. Having left the rectorial 
chair, has Herr von Willamowitz put back on the 
face of German science the delusive mask torn from 
it by the war ? 

The outburst of furious hatred which in the 
immediate circle of the most popular and well- 
informed of rectors had swamped with its filth even 
the lowest and most ignorant strata of the German 
people, has caused much meditation among reflecting 
Germans. In the Press, the University bodies have 
called upon the State to close the German Universi- 
ties in future to foreigners, and specially to subjects of 
the powers now at war with Germany, and of neutral 
countries who have not openly sided with her. In the 
Prussian Parliament this interdiction has given rise 
to a passionate Xenophobian discussion . The mere fact 
that deputies have made it the subject of a parlia- 
mentary debate, sanctioning the measure on the part 
of the Government, suffices to show to what degree 

— 204 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

the establishments of higher education are a poH- 
tical instrument in the hands of the State. Herr 
von Willamowitz would fain reassure his inter- 
locutors of Latin race on this point. But he is very 
careful not to tell them how completely philosophical 
and historical doctrine has shifted its aims in 
the last fifty years. Nothing remains of it, in fact, 
but narrow-minded party fanaticism and selfish 
nationalism. 

Contrary to what Germans are in the habit of 
doing, when they are summing up English and 
French science, we have no intention of denying 
the progress made by our neighbours in science, nor 
to belittle the preponderant share in it which in 
their country accrues to the Universities. Certainly 
there are benefits to science itself in making hu- 
manity partake of them in the widest and most 
liberal measure. But the method must always be 
considered, and it is precisely Herr von Willam- 
owitz's method which is characteristic of German 
Universities, although in his case it is toned down 
by acquaintance with the habits of society. The 
phrase in which he speaks of the obligation of foreign 
nations to take to themselves German progress, in 
the interest of science, throws a light on all German 
proselytism. He asserts, it being an understood 
thing that his learning gives him the right thereto, 
or rather, what is equally characteristic, he in- 
sinuates by antitheses, and formulates premises, leav- 
ing the trouble of proving them to the public. 

— 205 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

" The old Roman rhetoric no longer suffices " ; 
" the valuable national force of the Latin nations 
is hidden under the varnish of traditional forms." 
We expect from them a vigorous intellectual for- 
ward movement. Another of his colleagues would 
have said — ^how many times have we not heard it — • 
that the Latin races are prattlers incapable of 
action ; that their civilization is only veneered ; 
that there is no indication that their national powers 
will ever re-awaken, etc., etc. The Spanish acad- 
emician must have felt a little embarrassed, on 
account of the two other Latin sister nations, at 
the discovery of the " illustrious " Professor Morf 
on the recent literary renaissance in Spain. How 
happy the Spaniards ought to be to learn that 
Cervantes, whose anniversary has been feted every- 
where, in spite of the war, will later on be feted in 
Germany when they have time ; that the best 
Spanish linguist of the present day is a native of 
Columbia ; that without the supervision and 
initiative of German science, and without the 
money of the Emperor, the Spaniards would never 
have undertaken the excavations of Numantia. 
These facts may be accurate. But it would seem 
that by asserting them with a little more delicacy 
and a little less presumption, less risk would be 
run of awakening in the Spaniards the suspicion 
that German science is at any rate inclined to lord 
it over their science, and to control their plans 
of action. 

— 206 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

Every one has seen something of the same kind 
in German trade. And it is feared that the sum 
total of German progress, aHas "Kultur," may end 
in hke manner in " tyranny " and " suppression." 
Is it not for having withstood this danger and 
thwarted Germany's plans, that all the Latin, 
Anglo-Saxon and Slavonic nations of Europe, 
Spain alone excepted, are to-day the victims of 
German aggression ? Herr von Willamowitz invokes 
historical and philosophical doctrines to declare that 
uniformity in world culture would be a disaster. 
But these same doctrines teach us that such a uni- 
formity has never resulted, and never will result, 
from political ascendency, always supposing such 
an ascendency to be something more than a chimera. 
Spain once held sway over an empire on which the 
sun never set. She and England once divided the 
Americas between them. Their languages and 
culture prevail there to this day. It is quite prob- 
able that neither the Catalonian journalist nor the 
Academician believe that the misfortunes of South 
America — and she certainly has undergone many 
and great misfortunes — are due to their uniform 
Spanish culture, any more than that the prosperity 
of the Northern States, Canada and Australia, 
are the exclusive acts of dominating English 
culture. 

Herr von Willamowitz wants to bring about a 

University propaganda. He could not well say 

that the German professors had compromised their 

— 207 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

reputations both before and during the war. He 
does not breathe a word either of the clumsy insults 
heaped upon the foreign countries who did not 
applaud German action, or of the proscriptive 
measures schemed against foreign students. He 
does not name Italy, he touched upon French 
civilization of past times, and reveals his prejudice 
against England, the friend of Spain. All the rest 
is verbosity about "Kultur," the only theme which 
claims the attention of German Universities. To 
offer to discuss matters or to try to convert a 
KuUtirtrdger (a culture broker) would be a waste of 
time. Of whatever kind it may be, political, in- 
tellectual, economic, or all of them together, 
" Kultur " has led up to the most bloody conflict of 
history. Spreading a philosophical and historical 
doctrine by fire and sword is the peculiar charac- 
teristic of barbarous times and peoples. 

One University member has been found — one 
only — who has lifted up his voice to stigmatize 
the violent diffusion of " Kultur," and that is Prof- 
Fr. W. Foerster. His example is io rare that we 
may be pardoned if we once more quote him in 
reference to Herr von Willamowitz. 

This University professor is no less convinced of 
the cultural and world-wide mission of the Germans 
than is Herr von Willamovitz-Moellendorf, but he 
is equally convinced that there are other means of 
realizing it. Having been brought up according to 

— 208 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

the philosophical and historical doctrine of the 
German Universities, he has arrived at this con- 
viction by the study of the psychology of individuals 
and by consulting the history of civilizations. His 
studies have compelled the admiration even of those 
with whose opinions he has most violently clashed, 
so impressive and sincere are they judged to be. 
For Herr Foerster has learnt in the books of human- 
ity lessons quite different from those of the sovereign 
pontiffs of Berlin. Let the champion philosopher 
of Munich, who is an eloquent and skilful writer, 
be credited with having the same scientific weight as 
the overweening philologist of Berlin. The former is 
certainly not listened to with favom: by the public, 
the learned world and the Government. At least 
one might suppose that as a professor at the Univer- 
sity, he should enjoy the same freedom of thought 
and speech. The Faculty of which he is a member 
has decided otherwise. They have unanimously 
expressed and made public their " severest disappro- 
bation of the professor's opinions." His colleagues 
have declared themselves " determined to oppose 
firmly " any attempt at spreading abroad these 
opinions among the young men placed under the 
authority of academical professorship. The Ber- 
lin newspapers exulted, particularly those of the 
Evangelical Union, accused by Herr Foerster of 
having opened the campaign [Hetze) against him. 
The Liberal papers have tried to prove by every kind 
of quibble, that in the proceedings of the Faculty 

— 209 — o 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

against one of its own members no outrage was com- 
mitted against " academical liberty." They insinu- 
ated even that this " regrettable " incident was only 
a reprisal on the part of the Faculty on whom the cen- 
sured professor had been lorced by the Govern- 
ment ! 

We always knew before what to think of the 
independence of the professors of German Univer- 
sities. This incident has only been recalled in order 
to show that the University of Munich has made 
itself more Prussian than the Government of Berlin 
itself. 

What after all was the crime of Herr Foerster ? 
It consists in the fact that he, a German scholar, holds 
opinions diametrically opposed to those of his 
contemporaries on the policy of Bismarck and on 
the future of Germany ; above all it lies in the fact 
that he has had the courage to say this " at the 
moment when Germany is struggling for her very 
existence." But just because his country is strug- 
gling for life or death, Herr Foerster has thought 
it his duty as a learned man and a patriot to warn 
her of the dangers in her path, and to prove to her 
that the nationalist policy of Bismarck, the excessive 
centralization and the militarism which is its essen- 
tial condition of being, are turning Germany aside 
from her true destiny. Herr Foerster believes in the 
power of intellect and of moral worth. It is thanks 
to this power that the Catholic Church holds sway 
in the world. The Holy Roman Empire of Ger- 

— 210 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

manic origin once united under its "federative" 
system nations of the most diverse type, because 
this Empire represented a civilization. There was 
no need of unifying them, otherwise, or of doing 
violence to them. 

In other words Herr Foerster has had the courage 
to condemn a dogma as being contrary to philo- 
sophical and historical doctrine and dangerous to 
the vital interests of the German people — the 
dogma namely of Prussian patriotism, traded upon 
by Bismarck and the Government of Berlin, for the 
consolidation of the empire with the help of military 
power. Consequently, he condemns the Univer- 
sities v/ho have made themselves their instru- 
ments. 



These examples suffice to illustrate the political 
functions of the German Universities. The war 
has revealed their nature even to the most un- 
believing. Large is the number of foreign scholars 
and political men who even a short time ago were 
grateful admirers of a German alma mater, but who 
now turn away from a type of learning which is 
full of danger for humanity. Even in Germany 
a few minds have felt the need of a new departure 
{Neuorientirung) . They exhort their contemporaries 
to unlearn in order to learn anew {Umlernen). 
Their appeals have little chance of being understood 

— 211 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

in the humanistic sense, so long as the militarist 

Nationalism of 1813 and 1870 has not been definitely 

shipwrecked in the catastrophe provoked by it in 

1914. 

m * * 

To however great a degree of perfection the 
ordering of higher education in Germany may 
have been brought, foreigners have learnt through 
this war how questionable is the association with 
its irresponsible power which lies hidden under a 
show of humanitarian impartiality, and of what 
challenges to scientific truth its most illustrious 
teachers are capable. The outburst of hatred of the 
foreigner, which has reverberated from the Univer- 
sities to the very thresholds of the legislative powers, 
will be a warning to them. During the second 
year of war, the German Universities lost half, and 
even as much as two-thirds, of the students belonging 
to neutral countries.^ Let us be ready to receive 
all those who have shown their sympathy with us. 
Let us prepare to offer to the others the implements 
of work which a skilful and active propaganda bid 
fair to secure to them in Germany. For many 
reasons, as soon as the war is finished, it will be 
towards England and France, towards their Univer- 

^ There were only 119 Americans as against 300 in time 
of peace, 42 Asiatics as against 180, 220 Swiss as against 
310, 5 Danes as against 10, 44 Greeks as against 104, 32 
Scandinavians as against 43, 26 Dutch as against 32, 

— 212 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

sities, their technical schools, and their art institu- 
tions, that a vast band of youthful foreigners will 
turn. It is for us to see that they do not again 
take the road to Germany. 



— 213 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 



CHAPTER VII 
The War and the German Woman 

THERE was a time when the poets beyond the 
Rhine voiced the heart of their countrymen 
in glorifying the virtues of the German woman. 
The German young girl, the betrothed, the wife, the 
mother and the housewife had not their equals in the 
world. Germans of the present day have no use for 
such sentimentalities. Hermann and Dorothea are 
" back numbers," like Goethe himself. Imperial 
policy, the affairs of the world " Kultur " and the 
army demand virility, nothing but virility (Mann- 
hajtigkeit). Woman has taken a back seat. In- 
trepid debaters have revealed to us of how little 
account they are in the upper grades of military 
society. Novel writers have shown sympathy 
towards heiresses who have lost caste, towards 
middle-class misunderstood women, and towards 
unhappy working-girls. ^ Doctors and social reform- 

^ Gabriele Reuter has begun an interesting series of 
types of German women, which appear as a fly-sheet in 
the Vossische Zeitung (December, 1915). German women 
continue to ignore those of different social standing from 
their own. The feudal idea has recovered the upper hand. 

— 214 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

ers have united with the feminists in a campaign 
of rehabihtation which showed how precarious the 
social position of the German woman had become. 

" Kultur " has her " Walkyries." Frau von 
Bismarck would have wished her husband to raze 
to the ground the modern Babel on the banks of the 
Seine. Women Doctors of Philosophy and other 
blue-stockings affect the same arrogance as their 
brethren of the stronger sex. ^ More than the society 
woman and the worker, the middle-class woman, 
anxious to make some figure in the world, believes 
herself called to contribute to the glory of the 
Fatherland. Who has not met the Fraulein possess- 
ing a diploma, ridiculously dressed in " Reform- 
kleid " (rational dress), richer in pretensions than in 
capability, and proclaiming the militarist or pan- 
Germanic sentiments of papa, officer, professor or 
official in some public department ? 

In Germany one willingly consoles oneself for 
one's own imperfections by belittling one's neigh- 
bours. WTiat have they not said of French, Enghsh 
and American women ! However, sensible men and 
women have had the courage to look around them, 
in their own capitals, in their industrial towns, in 
the great and small garrisons, in the country-side. 
Infant mortahty continues to increase. An omin- 
ous moral perversion prevails among those in easy 
circumstances. Social and family wretchedness is 

1 See on this point the opinion of Fraulein Thirmacher, 

P- 137- 

— 215 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

great in the homes of the working people, who, 
however, earn more than sufficient wages. They 
have concluded from this that woman did not know 
how to fulfil her part as wife, mother, and housewife, 
and, as ever in such cases, they asked the Public 
Authority, the State, to intervene.^ 

The war has brought an unexpected justification 
of their claims. The wounded and the sick are 
infinitely more numerous than the authors of the 
catastrophe had feared. The hecatomb engulfs, 
without reckoning, precious lives. Myriads of 
orphans lack care. The sudden transition from easy 
to narrow circumstances has disorganized number- 
less homes. The inexperience of the women, which 
it was desired to deny officially, burst out in every 
direction. The Government had to create organiza- 
tions of which the nature, amplitude and circum- 
stance reveal the depth of the evil. 

German officialism objects to the employment of 
women. But " Necessity has no law ! " It has 
been necessary to have recourse to them to drive 
motors and horsed vehicles in the postal services, 
in public conveyances, for sanitary work and public 
order. What an innovation ! Newspapers spoke of 

^ Doctor Rott, Director of the Department for Infant 
Welfare in the Empress Augusta Victoria Hospital, accuses 
women of " indolence and inexperience " ; especially in 
the poorer classes women marry without any knowledge 
of housekeeping, and without understanding the care of a 
child. 

— 2l6 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

it as a revolution. In the towns, as well as in 
factories and in the country-side, the feminine 
worker was suddenly sought. 

On the other hand the employment of the middle- 
class girls and those of a higher class (the German 
tongue distinguishes between " Mddchen " and 
" Tochter," girls and ladies), proved a lamentable 
failure. They were hardly any use in the workshops 
or for the packing soldiers' parcels (Liebesgaben) . 
Those who were the most enthusiastic for the war 
showed themselves the least capable of rendering 
good service. The Red Cross and other administra- 
tions discharged them, and the women told in the 
newspapers of their vain efforts to obtain employ- 
ment.^ Not every one who wishes can become a 
Deaconess (Schmester). But there was need, in the 
poor households, to fill the place of the mothers who 
were working away from home, and who wasted 
long hours waiting their turn at the provision shops. 

1 For example the Tdgliche Rundschau, November 29, 
1 916 ; even the regulations deaUng with the " civilian mobil- 
ization," the levying of the whole people, rejects the women 
" who cannot do physical work." After a year's existence, 
the " Women's National Work " {National Frauenarbeit) of 
Berlin numbered 1,400 benevolent contributors of both 
sexes. The Managing Committee principally carries on pro- 
paganda, and is lavish with good advice. The twenty- three 
auxiliary Committees help the authorities in distributing 
war charities, obtain work for the women, and direct 
workshops. It is hoped the institution will survive the 
war. In December, 1915, only one Report had been 
received from the provinces. 

— 217 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

Innumerable orphans claimed immediate care. In 
the communal kitchens and in many helpful tasks, 
rendered necessary by the hard times, girls of good 
family could have made themselves useful. Alas ! 
these various works were not to their taste, or were 
beyond their capabilities. 

" The War has illuminated with a crude light on 
the one hand a spirit of boundless sacrifice and 
good will, and on the other the infinite insufficiency 
of feminine aptitude."^ " The great judgment of 
the War on women's education," says one of the 
leading feminists, 2 "is a peremptory condemnation 
of all mediocrities." 

Were they then so mediocre, those wives of the 
men called to the colours, who knew neither how to 
manage, nor how to economize, nor how to look after 
their children ? Or those others who should have 
been welcome helpers in the hospitals, in the houses 
of the poor, and in charitable institutions ? 

What anguish for the future ! To-morrow the 
State will need a great many new forces. It is for 
the women to reconstitute the population. Whether 

1 Das weibliche Dienstjahr, by L. Niessen-Deiters [Koln- 
ische Zeitung January 17, 1916) (Marginal notes of a lay- 
man) ; the leaflets of Frau Elizabeth Gnaiick-Kiihne, 
Dienstpflicht und Dienstjahr des weiblichen Geschlechts, " ObU- 
gatory Service and year of service of the female sex," by 
Frau Helene Lange, Die Dienstpflicht der Fran (women's 
obligatory service). 

2 Helene Lange, Kriegslehren fiir Frauenbildung (teach- 
ing of the war for the education of women), Frankfurter 
Zeitung, December 24, 1915. 

— 218 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

they work or whether they do not, do they know 
how to be mothers ? 

The lower the birth-rate, the more will it be neces- 
sary to protect the children. " The good blood- 
letting," of which several German authors have 
extolled the w^holesome necessity, has come to pass ; 
they little thought the flow would be so abundant ! 
It is therefore necessary to re-populate. For that, 
it is not sufficient to give permissions to the " men- 
in-grey " {Feldgrauen), it is necessary that the 
mothers should know how healthily to rear their 
offspring. Where have they learnt it ? Maternal 
nitiation is not what it formerly w^as. The legend- 
ary Hausfrau has been carried away by the rush for 
money and pleasure. The young girl of to-day finds 
employment. She wants to earn and spend. At 
the time when formerly she passed a useful stage 
in her parents' house, she now works away from 
home. Among well-to-do persons, the early 
years are spent at the boarding-school, and 
among the thousand and one frivolities of snobbery 
which have " arrived." The Backfisch (young 
girl) dreams of marriage when she leaves school. 
How many marry or have establishments secured for 
them at the earliest moment ? And how many 
become mothers prematurely ? 

With all the advantages of an unprecedented 
economic expansion German society has experienced 
all the disadvantages resulting therefrom. German 
feminists have seen the danger in which modern devel- 

— 219 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

opments placed the woman and the family. They 
have succeeded, with difi&culty, in bringing pubUc 
bodies into the path of feminine pedagogy, for 
national pride refuses to admit that the German 
woman requires assistance, and that the slow routine 
of' German administration willingly shelters itself 
behind the comfortable rigidity of political considera- 
tions. 



It was the women who first called the attention of 
the State to the necessity of supplementing the 
decreasing home-teaching by means of school 
instruction. But it was men who discussed their 
propositions round the green cloth of exclusive 
Commissions, and before Parliaments. It is men 
who, in Ministerial offices, have elaborated pro- 
grammes and methodical instructions for general 
and special teaching for girls. Finally, it is men 
who direct girls' schools, and monopolize the lessons 
they themselves consider important, giving manual 
and domestic instruction a quite secondary place. 
Women have but a distant and indirect influence on 
the feminine education of girls. 

In the primary school, the teaching of household 
management has only become obligatory within the 
last few years, and it is only given in the upper 
standards. The fear of injuring general instruction 
has prevented the authorities from giving it the 
place which was necessary in order to render it 

— 220 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

efficacious. This has been so strongly felt that in 
Bavaria, for example, young girls are offered an 
optional supplementary year devoted more specially 
to feminine subjects. In other states the organizing 
of complementary obligatory teaching equally for 
girls is encouraged. The programmes of the new 
institution and the Ministerial instructions which 
accompany them give a very excellent impression. 
But, on looking closer, one perceives that the pro- 
fessional teaching is given a higher place than the 
instruction of the future mothers and housewives. 
Administration or politics ? It is said that without 
the lure of perfecting professionalism on one side, and 
that of Hauswirtschaft (domestic economy) on the 
other, politicians would not have agreed as to the 
need of the prolonged obligation. 

If we are to believe the German feminists, the free 
primary school, with its obligatory extension, cannot 
even then suffice to give an adequate feminine 
education to the daughters of the people, that is, to 
those who need it most. 

It is the same with the middle-class schools. 
These are not schools in the same sense as our 
primary higher schools, doing more and better work 
than the ordinary school. Private initiative, parti- 
cular or municipal, has created them for the educa- 
tion of the daughters of the manufacturing or trading 
middle classes. They, consequently, take into 
account the desires of their paying patrons, and 
these demand teaching more professional than 

— 221 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

generally and purely feminine. When in 1910 the 
Prussian Minister of Public Instruction sketched for 
them a typical programme, to unify their teaching, it 
was hoped to accentuate their higher primary char- 
acter, and place in a good position theoretical and 
practical instruction in household management. 
These hopes have been frustrated. The middle-class 
school has remained the school of a certain social 
class (Standesschule) , with professional tendencies 
instead of becoming a continuation school to the 
primary school [Begabungsschule) for the good 
scholars who might have there completed, among 
other things, their course of domestic economy. 

Two years before — in 1908 — Prussia reorganized 
on a new basis a sort of secondary instruction, called 
superior, for the girls of good family (Tochter). It 
was sought to unite in one official institution the 
establishments, public or private, which, until then, 
prepared the daughters of officials and of the middle 
class for the careers of teachers of girls, or the 
University studies which had just been opened to 
them. 

A course of study, lasting ten years, the 
Lyzetim must ensure a good standard of general 
knowledge. 

On this common basis has been grafted three 
years of classes dubbed scientific, concluding with a 
year of practical pedagogy, for the use of future 
governesses and professors. 

Those who wish to acquire the knowledge neces- 

— 222 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

sary for the mistress of a household, for the mother, 
for the society woman, follow, on leaving the lyceum, 
for two years the lectures at the Fraiienschule 
(school for women). The programme of this section 
is very attractive. The young women could emerge 
experts in domestic economy, in child culture, in 
relief, in hygiene, in Kindergarten, and I know not 
what else, if the teaching were less scientific and 
more practical, and if the items de luxe were more 
judiciously limited. 

The decision has not yet been taken, since 1908, 
to crown this original edifice by a Higher Lyceum, 
which would prepare the students for a final examina- 
tion, always indispensable for matriculation at the 
Universities. This preparation remains entrusted 
to the " establishments for study " {Studienanstal- 
ten), which are the counterpart of the " Real " 
Gjnnnasiums and " Real " Schools for boys.^ The 
students enter them after the seventh or eighth year 
of general studies. 

The lyceums for young German girls have a 
definitely " Real " character. Mere imitation of 
the boys' secondary schools has been avoided. 



^ Prussia possesses thirty-four Studienanstalten Real 
Gymnasiums (with Latin, but no Greek) and four Studien- 
stalten, Real High Schools. These are muncipal establish- 
ments. The Lyceums do not bestow the leaving certifi- 
cate. In certain German countries, candidates for this 
certificate are admitted in the upper classes of boys' second- 
ary schools. 

—223 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

But, such as they are, they lead to everything and 
to nothing. Their usefulness has been compromised, 
from the feminine point of view, by the spirit which 
animates their operations. It is men, usually philo- 
logists, who direct them. The principal lectures 
are given by men, who belong to the Universities. 
The presumed advent of the " Lady Directress " 
formerly gave rise to jests. Now, feminists believe 
that under feminine rule there would be taught more 
practical hygiene and less chemistry, more domestic 
science and less time would be spent on the study 
of the French, English and Italian languages and of 
literature. 

The War has been for this famous Frauen- 
schule its first serious trial. The fiasco is complete. 
Perhaps, now, the decision may be taken to associate 
women in this work to a greater extent, and to give 
up the methods dear to men. 

* Ht )|: 

The peril is urgent, say the patriotic women. 
The " new Germany " needs wives, mothers, chil- 
dren, at once. And since the schools have not 
moulded them, and will not be able to mould them 
soon, the idea has been started to request the State 
to exact /row all women one year oj obligatory serviced 

41 9|C * 

The analogy with the military compulsory service 
for men is evident. What deserves to be underlined 

^ See above, p. 218, note i. 
— 224 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

is that German militarism pretends to regulate the 
most intimate acts as well as the most commonplace 
in private life. The infection has seized upon the 
intelligent women who impart it by reasonings of 
this kind to their compeers who have remained more 
in touch with nature. 

Primary and complementary education is com- 
pulsory both for boys and for girls. The State 
needs men to defend the Fatherland ; it enforces 
military service. Since the State has also need of 
women to conserve the same Fatherland, why should 
women not prepare themselves, equally by a time 
of compulsory service ? 

The State is authorized to disturb the lives of 
young men by calling them to the barracks : it 
deprives the general economic condition of the coun- 
try of innumerable energies that could be better 
utilized : it is for the good of the country, without 
counting that army discipline is an excellent train- 
ing for the majority of citizens. If the State 
claimed in the same way a fixed period in the life of 
the young women, would it not also be in their 
interest and in that of the whole community ? 

These reasonings are quite in the spirit of a Govern- 
ment which, since 1914, administers the country 
like barracks, which regulates, in life's smallest 
details, the public and private existence of each 
individual, and which has just requisitioned the 
civilian populations purely and simply for its 
political necessities. 

— 225 — p 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

The unexpected turn of this war has driven the 
Germans to push mihtarism to its final consequences. 
They are proceeding to do it in the same spirit which 
they bring to their scientific deductions. It remains 
to be seen if the appHcation of this has not in store 
for them disappointment. 

Certain German feminists — ^and not the least 
among them — consider the compulsory service of 
women as a logical ideal solution. " The compul- 
sory service of women, in time of peace as in time of 
war, consists in preserving and developing the 
strength of the nation," says Frau Helene Lange. 
That means that in peace time, woman shall be a 
proUfic and prudent mother, capable of bringing 
up her own children in a healthy and well-ordered 
home, and, besides, of helping to rear, in the same 
way, those of poor mothers, orphans, etc. In doing 
this, she accomplishes a public function. She 
should, therefore, be compelled to prepare herself 
for it in as complete a manner as possible. What is 
this but saying that German mothers must be the 
providers and the auxiliaries of the Militarist 
Moloch ? From the beginning of peace they will 
produce " men " of whom the Military Staff " will 
make soldiers." In war time they will constitute a 
contingent which can be mobilized and used for the 
multiple duties at the bases for which they are fitted. 
Hospital nurses, canteen w^orkers, visitors to the 
widows and orphans of soldiers, etc. They will also 
be employed in certain works and functions usually 

— 226 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

allotted to men. So as to prepare and train them 
in view of " maternity " and " feminity " (the 
German feminists have not failed to expatiate on 
the terms Mutterschaft and Mutterlichkeit), they 
will be obliged to follow a free course of instruction, 
The war has brought to light the insufficiency of 
their benevolent preparation. In the future the 
Military Staff and the Government must not be 
embarrassed by them, as has happened this time. 
It will be necessary to be able to go to war with the 
certainty that the reaction on and the consequences 
for one's own country are reduced to a minimum. 
Women's occupations are, it is true, peace occupa- 
tions. But peace for the Germans is one continual 
preparation for war. Civilian life is, with them, 
subordinated to the business of war. 

The feminists who have begotten this patriotic 
proposition defend themselves, with many quibbles, 
against desiring to encourage war. Military hypnot- 
ism has given them the tone of sincerity, but hides 
from them the social dangers and the unrealizable 
folly of their thesis. Some, both men and women, 
have been found who are opposed to the discipline 
of such a public course of instruction. Others 
prefer, for the training of young girls for maternity 
and feminity, the gentle and natural school of 
family life, and, to complete it, the teaching of 
expert mistresses.^ Supposing that the State dared 

1 Fraiilein Mar fa von Sacher Masoch denounces the 
project as a preparation in view of a future war {Vossische 

— 227 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

to impose upon the nation the enormous financial 
effort necessary to enhst and house in barracks the 
women during a settled period of their youth, at 
what age would they be called up ? At the con- 
clusion of school life ? The time is not the same for 
poor as for rich girls. Before they become mothers 
or wives ? But in " virtuous " Germany, as well as 
elsewhere, the heart of the girls has reasons for 
advancing the date, reasons which will not take 
into account the needs of the State. Perhaps even, 
persons marry earlier in Germany than in other 
countries. The Germans are too far from demo- 
cratic equality to admit the promiscuous intercourse 
of the barracks for even all men. So much the 
stronger reason for not permitting it for women. 
Would the poor be lodged in the barracks, while 
the rich were lodged and fed at their own charges, 
like one year volunteers ? It is well known that 
without parcels from home, the most robust young 
man would waste away on " rations " only. What 
would it be for young girls ? Finally the moral 
effect of service in common is more debatable with 
regard to women than men. These schemes do not 
take into account that it will be impossible to mobil- 
ize, even if only for a time, all the women who are 
already filling the place of the men who have been 
carried away by the whirlwind. In peace time, 

Zeitung, January i6, 1916). Frau Kathe SprockhoiS tries 
to refute this (Ibid., February 6, 1916). These two articles 
mark the extreme opposites of the thesis. 

— 228 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

how many are there who replace, notably in country 
districts, brothers who are with the colours ? 

And when Germany has been transformed into 
vast barracks, is it intended to seek outside for 
helots who will maintain the choice " valiant for 
the war " men and women, constituted according to 
the militarist dream ? 



Let us, from this strange hypnotic feminism, re- 
tain the fact that the German woman has not risen to 
the height of her circumstances. It is seriously feared 
in Germany that her insufficiency will retard the 
recovery of the country worn out by the war. The 
remedy is being sought. But instead of getting 
to the root of the evil to fight it, they await the 
healing properties of the war. Nothing is more 
significant than the frequent commencement of 
articles: "The War was necessary to . . .," or 
" War is a great master," every time dire neces- 
sity has forced upon the authorities some inno- 
vation long desired and always refused. The writ- 
ings of German feminists seem to breathe a sigh 
of approaching freedom. But the nationalist spirit, 
which inspires most of them, is it quite that which is 
required to end the bondage which men, the directing 
agents, have laid upon their cause, as upon many 
others, for political ends ? In Prussia, less than 
anywhere, would the Administration care to give 
way " to women." 

— 229 — -»- 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

When the war constrained the Prussian Minister 
of PubUc Instruction to fill the posts left vacant by 
masters who were called up every expedient was 
tried until exhausted ; combining of several classes, 
fewer lessons, etc. Next, reservists were called upon 
to assist, even men holding diplomas considered 
insufficient in normal times, or not certificated at 
all, as long as they were able to " manage a class," 
which means, above all, to be able to keep discipline. 
And only then were women called upon. During 
the first year of the war, a hundred women professors 
were delegated to the boys' secondary schools in 
Berlin itself. This trial scheme was hailed as an 
" unheard-of event " ! Never before had the doors 
of a boys' secondary school been even ajar for them. 
It appears they were a success, except in one case, 
sufficiently typical to be mentioned. One of these 
young mistresses dared to complain to the hooligans 
that they were not respectful towards her, that they 
were not gentlemen, and that they behaved less 
well than " American boys." The unfortunate 
teacher had to resign her post. 

The Prussian Minister has even foreseen more 
extended employment for women after the war, at 
least, in primary schools. All the same, he has 
carefully watered the proportion. In girls' schools, 
the junior classes may be held by mistresses. In 
boys' schools, the junior classes may be entrusted 
to them. One-third of the teaching staff of mixed 
schools may be women. And the Minister expressly 

— 230 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

urges that in no case shall be admitted any candi- 
dates but those of proved physique. So persistent 
is the prejudice against the " weaker " sex. 

Wliile admitting, under the pressure of circum- 
stances, and only provisionally, widowed teachers 
with children, and retaining in their employment 
mistresses married since the beginning of the War 
(Kriegsgetraut), the Minister does not intend to 
break with the principle which excludes all married 
teachers from the work. of teaching. The feminists 
have thought that the war would contribute to 
abolish the enforced celibacy of the women pro- 
fessors. It is true that they are not called upon to 
take vows at the beginning of their career ; a place 
is found for them, even though it is a restricted 
proportion, and in the least important posts. But 
if they are able to marry, they renounce their posts 
and the rights acquired by years of work. That is a 
flagrant injustice. Would not married teachers, 
wives and mothers, replace better than soured old 
maids the mother with the girls, in all matters 
pertaining to feminine teaching ? A reply made 
by a Medical Inspector ^ to this inadmissible heresy 



^ Oberlehrererin Lydia Stocker pleads the cause of the 
married teacher in the Vossische Zeitimg of January 23, 
1 916. Doctor Theilhaber also seeks to combat the pre- 
judice against her, sanctioned by school legislation (Ibid., 
March 11, 191 6). On the contrary the Schuhnspektor 
Doctor Schepp, of Berhn, snubs " in the Prussian manner " 
his fellow member, gained over to the feminist demands. 
(Ibid., March 17, 1916). 

— 231 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

should be read. " Already, before the War, women 
obstructed public education. They bar the way to 
proved and deserving men-teachers. The Adminis- 
tration has been obliged to make a momentary appeal 
for their services — unfortunately for the children. 
How dare any one compare Germany to Italy, 
Portugal, Spain, Servia e tutti quanti (this polite 
official has been unwilling to mention France), where 
women-teachers may marry ! It is well-known that 
motherhood is incompatible with the teacher's 
profession, and that teachers are too often away from 
their work. We intend," he concludes, " to educate 
a generation oj blood and iron. It is necessary for 
this to increase the masculine staff, and not allow the 
feminine influence to increase." 



Here, expressed with the typical roughness of 
Prussian patriots, is the reason of the mistrust of the 
Administration with regard to the education of the 
younger generations by women. The example of 
Prussia has gained over the other States. Is it 
surprising that feminine pedagogy should have found 
so little sympathy in Imperial Germany ? Only a 
secondary importance has been granted to it. 
Unwillingness only just escapes being hostility. 
Militarist pride, drawn towards education in valour 
in view of military service (Erziehung zur Wehrhaftig- 
keit), and preoccupied with the formation of citizens of 
the Empire in view of the political ideal of the greatest 

— 232 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

and most powerful Germany, has misunderstood the 
economic and social value of woman. " Kultur " 
would have it believed that the ancient German 
virtues connected with hearth and home are still 
persistent. From this arise the half-measures and 
delays of the Administration in face of fresh needs 
created by the modern evolution. 

To those who have recalled Fenelon's treatise on 
the education of the young girls, or the example 
of Madame de Maintenon founding the School of 
Saint Cyr, and to those who praised the educational 
methods for girls inaugurated in France, England 
and Switzerland, it was answered that German 
women had nothing to learn from outside, quite the 
contrary. A regular campaign was started, since 
the war, against the boarding-schools in French 
Switzerland, where many German families sent 
their daughters. ^ The execution of Miss Cavell gives 
the measure of German contempt for English women, 
so admirable in their work for the army and their 
toil at the base. Germany cannot boast, like 
England, of having found among its women of good 
will 85 per cent, of the workers occupied in the 
manufacture of war material. 

As to Frenchwomen, perhaps the day may come 

^ Franzosische Pensionate from the Frankfurter General 
Anzeiger in the Neues Wiener Journal, September 30, 
1 915; LiXcken in der Frauenbildung of the Stadtschuhat 
Doctor Miiller (Wiesbaden), in the Frankfurter Zeitung, 
J1;ly II, 1 916. 

— 233 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

when Germans will blush for their behaviour with 
regard to them. They have feigned to ignore their 
qualities as wives, mothers, and citizens. The war 
will have taught them to recognize these. 

There have been in France and England critics 
who have spoken of the women during the war- 
Not one has formulated judgments comparable to 
the severe condemnations that German men and 
women have pronounced against the German women. 
Feminine pedagogy is nowhere perfect. But it is 
to be believed that it is everywhere better than in 
Germany. That is what the war will have taught 
to us. Will it teach German feminists that their 
duty is to free feminine pedagogy from militarism 
and politics, instead of associating it with them more 
closely ? It is not very certain. 



— 234 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 



CHAPTER VIII 

The German Scholastic Propaganda in Foreign 
Countries before and during the War 

THE absorbing power of Germany had become 
evident in the ever increasing number of 
schools that she maintained in foreign countries 
before the war. Exact statistics of these have never 
been pubHshed.^ When, after 1870, a census of 
outside German elements was begun, twenty-four 
schools were counted in European countries. Nearly 
all were religious foundations. A few, like S. 
Peter's School and the Reformed School in Copen- 
hagen or the S. Mary's and S. George's Schools in 
London, date from the eighteenth century. Over- 
seas, there were scarcely more than twenty. In 
1905 the figures were 1,000 schools with 12,800 
pupils, and in 1907 1,242 schools with 64,600 pupils. 

^ It is necessary to distinguish between properly accre- 
dited schools, organized and stable, and lectures for stu- 
dents, intermittent and ephemeral ; between the schools 
of ancient foundation, independent of the metropolis, and 
those which have been created since 1870 for the propaga- 
tion of Deutschtum. 

— 235 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

These figures permit one to measure the rapidity 
and rate of the progress. A year before the war the 
number of children instructed in foreign countries 
by Germans, in German, and especially in the 
German spirit, was estimated at 100,000. About 
three-fourths of these were sons or daughters of 
German parents, Austrians, or German Swiss. It 
is therefore a relatively important contingent of 
children originally non-Germanic, and of their 
families, that the German schools claim to teach and 
maintain in sympathy with " Kultur." 

In these numbers the schools in the American 
United States peopled by Germans are not counted. 
Undoubtedly these schools are American schools. 
But, taking advantage of the great liberty which 
characterizes scholastic organization in the United 
States, the Germans have given their impress to 
about 4,000 schools, with 7,000 masters, and about 
300,000 pupils. At least these are the numbers 
they themselves give. 

It has been estimated that there are twenty-two 
millions of Germans established outside the Empire. 
Adding to this number, on one side, populations of 
German origin, naturalized, but not assimilated 
like the fifteen or twenty miUions of German- 
Americans in the United States, and, on the other, 
foreigners educated in Germany or by Germans, 
one understands that the subjects of William II have 
ceased to be " culture fertilizer " {Kultur dun ger) in 
foreign countries, to become an active and powerful 

— - 236 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

fermenting agency of the German penetration 
throughout the world. 

The present war has shown how German ambitions 
intended to profit by this penetration. In the 
United States the " German- American citizens " 
have gravely imperilled the political order of the 
great Republic. Bulgaria has been drawn into the 
Austro-German camp by a Prime Minister who was 
formerly a student at Heidelberg. The Turkish 
ally has been schooled by Germany since the acces- 
sion of William II. Switzerland has been obliged 
to take serious measures in order to protect the 
harmony of its citizens against the dissolving influ- 
ence of the German Imperialists. 

Briefly, the war has made the whole world feel 
the power of the " national " propaganda which 
Germany had prepared, by making her public 
instruction an article for exportation. 

4: 4: Hi 

In 1910 the imposing German pedagogical exhibi- 
tion in Brussels contained a very instructive collec- 
tion dealing with German expansion throughout the 
world, notably maps and diagrams. With a view 
to advertisement, they were exhibited in the lecture- 
room of the section. Besides this, thousands of 
copies of a pamphlet, summing up the work of the 
" Society for Germanism abroad." (" Verein fiir 
das Deutschtum Auslande — V.D.A. — Allgemeiner 
Deutscher Schulverein — E.V.") were distributed. 

This private Society was founded in 1881. Its 

— 237 ■— 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

object is to aid the diffusion of German teaching 
outside the empire. It is directed by men having 
practical experience of foreign nations. Until last 
year its acting president was a former Minister of 
State : to-day it is directed by a former ambassador. 
Nearly 60,000 members belong to numerous (260) 
local , committees : a bulletin numbering 50,000 
copies, 1 and annual receipts of more than 710,000 
marks give some idea of the powerful action of this 
Society. 

Needless to say that the Imperial Government 
largely subsidized such a precious auxiliary to 
German influence throughout the world. Com- 
merce follows language ; wherever the German 
language penetrates, German goods will follow. 
Already, in about 1875, the Empire had voted for 

^ The committee of this Society publish a quarterly- 
official bulletin, called Das Deutschtum im Ausland (Hil- 
ger, Berlin) ; the twentieth number is the one of the second 
quarter in 1914. The collection is to be found in the Peda- 
gogic Museum in Paris (41 rue Gay Lussac 5.). The Museum 
also receives the monthly bulletin of the " Society of Ger- 
man teachers abroad," which is entitled Die Deutsche 
Schule im Ausland, and which is in its third year (1914). 
One finds in these two collections all documents necessary 
for a comprehensive study of our rivals' efforts to further, 
in foreign countries, German culture by scholastic methods. 
For the present study we have used articles published on 
this question in the great German Press since the war 
began. These are partly communications made by the 
Society V.D.A. to several hundred newspapers in Germany 
and abroad. Our sources of information are therefore of 
the best. 

— 238 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

this propaganda a subvention of 375,000 marks. This 
amount not being utihzed owing to the lack of a 
distributing agency it was reduced to 75,000 marks. 
There were other reasons for this deduction. Part of 
these subsidized schools partook of a " confessional " 
character, which seemed, to certain politicians, 
incompatible with the neutrality inherent to a State 
subvention. Besides, the manner in which this 
propaganda was administered by the directors from 
the metropohs, brought protests to the Home 
Government from the foreign Powers. It was 
feared that the official subsidy would assume the 
character of a too-direct interference by the German 
Government in the management of scholastic estab- 
lishments which, in spite of their German origin, 
must remain obedient to the laws of the countries 
in which they were situated. With the above- 
named private Society no such complication was 
to be feared. Thus, in 1895, the Government raised 
the subsidy to 100,000 marks ; it appears in the 
Budget of 1914 at the sum of 1,500,000 marks. 

Directed by competent men ; helped by the 
State, and by the private enterprise of the metro- 
polis as much as by German or Germanophil agglo- 
merations in foreign countries ; efficiently sustained 
by diplomatic and consular agents : grouping 
around a German hearth the kindred elements, 
Austrians, Swiss, Scandinavians, without distinctions 
of faith, the Society for German Expansion in Foreign 
Countries " has known how to create and develop 

— 239 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

schools very greatly appreciated in the surroundings 
where they exist. The teaching methods being 
those of the German programmes, it was relatively 
easy to adapt the books and school requisites to the 
needs of each country. German editors lend them- 
selves willingly to this adaptation. When class- 
books used in the metropolis can be utilized just as 
they are, they present to the Society the obsolete 
editions. Where the language used in teaching 
must or may be the speech of the foreign country, 
an excellent plan for attracting the children of the 
native families, the German language does none the 
less play a preponderating part. In every way it is 
always German ideas which form the basis of the 
teaching. 

The great difhculty is always the choice of good 
masters. The Society has been enabled to recruit 
150 professors with University degrees, and about 
1,800 masters holding a training college diploma, 
without counting women teachers more or less 
certificated. It does not fear to enrol French or 
English masters or mistresses when one of these 
languages is taught in its schools, for the German 
school in foreign countries is very supple and very 
accommodating, and consequently very much to be 
feared. It is, in many lands, small and poor, 
obsequious and slightingly regarded, but very 
tenacious. Prosperous, it knows how to draw atten- 
tion to itself. An example : — 

The German school in Brussels figured at the 

— 240 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

Exhibition of 1910 ex aequo with the model 
estabhshments of the Fatherland. The Berlin 
Government had delegated several of its professors 
to the various international committees, where they 
sat with noted educationists of other great countries. 
At the school itself gatherings and exhibitions 
succeeded each other, presided over by some Excel- 
lence or Highness. It was a good advertisement. 
The German schools at Antwerp and other Belgian 
towns profited thereby. The staff of the Antwerp 
schools is particularly active.^ The German colony 
of the great Belgian emporium, numerous, rich, and 
powerful, has largely contributed, as much in its 
own interest as from patriotic duty, to raise its 
primary, secondary, and technical schools to the 
level of the best establishments in Germany. 2 In 
all meetings where questions of programmes and 
methods, interests and quahfications of the staff, 
etc., in German schools in foreign countries are dis- 
cussed, the experiences and demands of the Antwerp 
staff are cited as examples. 
The scholastic activity of the Germans in Belgium 

1 On December 7, 1913, the meeting of the " Association 
of German Teachers in Belgium and Holland," was held at 
Antwerp. They number seventy who work at Antwerp, 
Brussels, Li^ge, Ghent, Hoboken and Neerpelt, and at 
Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague, and Venlo. 

2 The " German General School " at Antwerp counts 
812 pupils, boys and girls, and 41 masters. Its superannua- 
tion fund, proceeding entirely from gifts, amounts to 
180,000 francs. 

— 241 — Q 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

has been brought to light by the sad events of the 
war. The decrees of Governor von Bissing ordering 
school attendance in the unhappy occupied districts, 
and the creation of the Flemish University at Ghent, 
are measures in agreement with the pretensions of 
German policy to exercise protectorship over smaller 
nations. Those in Belgium who, before the war, 
had praised such measures, to the great embarrass- 
ment of the Belgium Government, anxious to main- 
tain a good understanding between citizens of 
different origins, languages, and religions, were 
obedient to ideas sown by German or Germanizing 
pedagogues established in the country. We will 
shortly quote other example not less conclusive of 
the effects of this propoganda. Let us return to our 
organization. 

The Metropolitan Society for the Extension of 
Germanism in Foreign Countries has affiliated socie- 
ties in all the great centres of the empire, and even 
in German-speaking countries outside the empire, 
At Hamburg, for example, an imposing group 
founded in 1904 occupies itself principally with the, 
German schools in South America. Nearly £10,000 
in cash and more than £1,000 in books and materials 
have been distributed by this group alone, which 
numbered, in 1913, 875 members. An appeal for 
funds, addressed to the people the same year, under 
the following title, " Help the German Schools in 
South America," brought in more than £1,000. 
The efforts oj the Society and of its groups tend, in the 

— 242 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

first instance, to interest the mass oj the public in its 
effort at patriotic propaganda. 

The Imperial Government does not only help by 
subsidies. The Minister for Foreign Affairs and the 
Colonial Office require that all their agents should 
lend to the masters, pastors or missionaries all the 
support of their authority. Ambassadors and 
Ministers attend, with their famihes and entire 
staffs, the school festivals in their neighbourhood. 
The Ministry of Public Instruction has taken 
measures, notably in 1905 and 1908, to enable duly 
qualified masters to teach in foreign schools without 
prejudice to their careers. It shows that the choice 
of these instructors is made with the greatest care. 
The possession of a training college diploma or a 
University degree is not always sufficient. Having 
to instruct children who do not know German — 
children of native families — or, if children of German 
parentage who speak with their comrades the 
language of the country, the masters must them- 
selves know, as well as possible, the language of the 
country where they desire to teach. They must 
also possess social gifts facilitating their entrance 
into foreign society. Finally, only those masters 
who have a knowledge of the pohtical, social and 
economic milieu where they are expected to 
" work " for German influence are sent abroad. 
To effect this, there is a question of creating a true 
special University for agents sent abroad (^i/s/««^s- 
hochschule). 

— 243 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

This establishment, largely discussed in the general 

and special Press/ is of a nature to call for our 

attention. In 1913 the Reichstag had before it a 

project signed by Erzberger and von Richthofen in 

view of the creation of this institution by the 

Empire. Another deputy, Doctor Hager, submitted 

a similar proposition to the Prussian Chamber of 

Deputies. These projects found support among the 

most important members of ParHament, especially 

among those representing commerce and industry. 

No matter if it is the " Oriental Seminary " at the 

University of Berlin which is to be enlarged or the 

other Colonial or Commercial Institutes of Kiel or of 

Hamburg, the idea is to found one vast institution, 

endowed with tuition, libraries, collections, etc., 

where all those diplomatists, consuls, professors, 

who will go abroad as pioneers and representatives 

of Germanism, can equip themselves with linguistic, 

historical, political, social and industrial information. 

The war has given to this project a powerful present 

interest. It has again been taken up by the Press, 

and its realization recommended as very urgent .^ 

It is realized, on the east of the Rhine, that the war 

has arrested or destroyed commercial and social 

activity in most foreign countries. It is also known 

that the declared or latent hostility against the 

Germans will render its resumption after the war 

^ Berliner Tageblatt, November 24 and 26, 1915, among 
others. 

2 Kolnische Zeitung, January 31, 1917 (No 104). 

— 244 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

much more difficult. There is, in fine, the conscious- 
ness that this resumption is a vital necessity for 
Germany. It is therefore needful to prepare at once 
a staff capable of advantageously combating with 

the other nations, and most particularly with France. 
* * * 

The kind of schools the Germans found, or pre- 
ferably develop in the countries where they traffic, 
are " Real Schule " ; that is establishments in 
preparation for practical life. Without being from 
the point of view of theoretic studies the complete 
equivalent of similar establishments in the metro- 
polis, the German and Austrian Ministers admit, 
nevertheless, without any other formality, pupils 
from these schools to their establishments for 
advanced studies in pure or applied science, to the 
commercial high schools, etc. This favour not only 
encourages German functionaries and traders to 
have their children instructed near them, in their 
distant home, but also attracts the native children. 

Special care is given to girls' schools. Women 
are excellent apostles of the instruction and educa- 
tion they have received. Not long ago, the German 
Girls' School in Bucharest was seeking in France a 
school mistress agregee, or at least a licenciee to 
whom was promised a very substantial salary ! In 
the girls' primary schools the teaching is generally 
given by deaconesses. 

The small schools are, mostly, in the care of the 
pastors who founded them. But the general 

— 245 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

tendency is to free the important school, at least in 
as far as teaching is concerned, from their denomi- 
national influence. 

The " Society for the Expansion of Germanism in 
Foreign Countries " can flatter itself on having 
obtained fine results through the schools. It has 
developed, in little more than thirty years, an 
indefatigable ardour. It openly declares that its 
propaganda is directed principally against the 
powerful activity of the " French Alliance " and the 
" Jewish Alliance." One understands its regrets at 
seeing its work compromised by the war, and its 
hopes of being able to take it up again with renewed 
vigour after the conclusion of peace dashed to the 
ground. This is why it seems to us noteworthy to 
illustrate its projects with some examples drawn from 

the German daily Press of the last few months. 
* * * 

From the opening of hostilities, the Society has 
mobilized its adherents. It placed itself entirely 
in the service of the war propaganda, so as to 
" vigorously combat," so it is said in the report of 
the general assembly for 1915,^ "the campaign of 
mendacity long prepared by the enemies." 

Its principal field of action has been South America, 
which it has inundated with pamphlets and fiy- 
sheets in Spanish and English. It has created for 

^ Held at Munich October 2 and 3, 191 5, under the 
auspices of the Munich group and the Bavarian Union 
{Vossische Zeitung, October 4, 1915). 

— 246 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

the benefit of the Latin RepubHcs a bi-monthly 
Review entitled Guerra europea, directed by M. 
Lauchez y Rosal, in agreement with the " Central 
Union Germano Argentine," and sent from Berlin 
to Spain to be from thence distributed in the His- 
pano-Portuguese countries of South America. 

In the Argentine Republic the German Society 
possesses powerful centres. The " Germano- Argen- 
tine Scientific Society " feels strong enough to think 
of establishing itself in its own premises which 
it will construct with " the subsidies from the 
Vaterland." In 1912 the Empire's subsidy to the 
German schools in Argentine was 719,000 marks. 
Except the group of Buenos-Aires {Germania 
Schule) which comprises a " Real " school of nine 
classes, a high school for girls of six classes, and 
a primar}^ school equally of six classes, and which 
had before the war a total of 446 pupils, few 
German schools in the country counted more than 
sixty scholars. The position of teachers in the pro- 
vinces, which formerly was that of servants (peones) 
has, it is stated, greatly improved.^ It is alleged, 
on the other hand, that in many places the child- 
ren of German colonists willingly neglect the lan- 
guage of their parents, and prefer to speak Spanish. ^ 

The Germans seem to indulge in illusions as to the 
effects produced there by their war propaganda. 
The Berlinev TageblaU ^ inserted with satisfaction the 

^ Deutsche Schule im Ansland, vol. xii, 1913, p. 423. 
2 Ibid, p. 511, 3 September 6, 1915. 

— 247 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

laudatory mention of Germany's economic and 
financial organization, delivered by Senator Adolfo 
Davila in the Argentine First Chamber in August, 
1915. The Berlin paper is pleased to underline Mr. 
Davila 's qualities as chief editor of the greatest 
South American newspaper, the Prensa. " Since," 
it says, " this important person has chosen the 
tribune of his Parliament rather than the columns of 
his paper to proclaim German superiority, it is that 
the Anglo-Franco-North-American lies had closed his 
mouth, as also those of many of his brethren, and 
that the powerful success of the German arms begins 
to open their eyes." It seems to us infinitely more 
probable that the Senator's discourse did not aim so 
much at praising Germany as to warning his fellow- 
citizens against her powerful organization. The 
silence of the journalist is more significant, and 
rather implies a check to German propaganda. 

Undoubtedly Germany has obtained a foothold in 
the Argentine Republic, and she will do everything to 
maintain herself therein. However, the disappear- 
ance of her merchant fleet and the ruin of her enter- 
prises there, from which the much- vaunted " organ- 
ization " has withdrawn the best workmen to turn 
into soldiers, will speak to the Argentine in a language 
far more truthful than that of the leaflets issued 
by the anti-democratic propagandists of William H. 
In the future, the concerted influence of the United 
States, England, France and Italy will not, it seems, 
have much trouble in paralyzing German push. 

— 248 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

Let us note, in passing, that the Chihan Govern- 
ment subsidizes rather largely a certain number of 
German schools in the country, but that it has 
reduced by one half, in 1913, the subvention to the 
important schools of Valdivia (426 pupils). 

Several times, German underhand dealings in 
Venezuela created difficulties for us with this un- 
stable Republic. The Germans have been estab- 
lished there since the time of Charles V., who granted 
to an Augsburg house working privileges in that 
country. Numerous German explorers, of whom 
was Alexander von Humboldt, have brought the 
country to the notice of the Fatherland. The most 
important railway line is German. Many industries : 
clockmaking, pharmacy, printing, etc., as well as 
commerce in exports, are in German hands. German 
officers and soldiers have often fought in the ranks 
of the Venezuelans. The German language is taught 
in the principal schools of the country. There is 
therefore nothing surprising in the fact that a native 
writer,V. M. Ovaller, in a book entitled Ser no ser 
(To be or not to be), should have thought it right to 
desire the victory of Germany, in spite of his sym- 
pathies with France and democratic England. The 
Germa.n Press has drawn people's attention to this 
work.^ 

In Brazil, German scholastic action has been 

particularly active. For reasons which it is easy to 

guess the Hamburg branch of the " Society for 

^ Among others, the Kolnische Zeitimg of May 27, 1915. 

— 249 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

German Expansion in Foreign Countries "^ has taken 
under its special care the schools of Rio Granda do 
Santa Catarina, Parana, Lao Paulo (in 1913). After 
having endowed them with £10,000, it has again 
appealed to the patriotism of its adherents for an 
urgency grant of £1,000, setting forth that the French 
Alliance could expend, in Brazil, £30,000 and the 
Italian Society Dante Allighiere £10,000 annually. 
Recent events give reason to hope that, after the 
war, German activities will have even greater 
difficulty in withdrawing Brazil from the economic 
and social alliance of France, Italy and England. 
The state of war between Portugal and Germany 
has had a strongly repellent effect in Brazil. Once 
more in the course of their history the Portuguese 
of the Old and New Worlds are extending their 
hands to each other across the Atlantic. At one 
blow Germany has made for herself two enemies ; 
two brothers, it is true, but also two democracies, 
which is equally important. 

The Germans had not forgotten Brazil in their 
war propaganda. But the BraziHans remained 
faithful to their sympathies towards France. 

A wave of obstinate hatred against the Germans 



1 The port of Hamburg grants to Brazilian commerce 
the greatest faciUties, to its own advantage, be it under- 
stood. Without these faciUties, Germany would not have 
been able to requisition from the Brazilian bonded ware- 
houses of this port, in the beginning of the war, consider- 
able quantities of coffee. 

— 250 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

is passing over Brazil. On principle the people close 
their ears against all proof of good sense and justice. 
Germans are refused bread and water. Their 
affirmations, intended less to justify than to explain, 
are all contested. " We (the Brazilians) practise 
an insane partiality. Our newspapers collaborate 
in the mendacious information, the equivocal 
communicated items of news, and the ' shrieking ' 
comments of I'Agence Havas, — inventive and 
always vainglorious. Whenever this Agency, in 
default of news of victories, repeated the refrain of 
the superiority of French guns over the German 
ones, our newspapers embellished the account with 
vainglorious phrases such as ' the superiority of the 
Allies is prodigious ; have we not always said it ? ' 
etc. In the places where meals of literary news are 
' cooked ' for all the papers, groups of young 
scribes prepare savoury strategic dishes, and show 
how little, in reality, we understand military sciences. 
Naturally Germany is totally demolished in this 
kitchen, where her military, commercial and indus- 
trial incapacity is always proved. France and 
England appear without blemish, like angels : they 
are resplendent in prodigious heroism, they are, we 
are most intimately convinced, the most perfect 
chefs-d'oeuvre of creation." 

These lines are a literal translation of an article 
entitled " Razoes seer etas " by Mr. Bugalho. The 
article has been reproduced in German in No. yz of 
the San Paulo German newspaper, from which the 

— 251 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

K dints che Zeitung has spread it throughout 
Europe (May 19, 1915, No. 539). There it occupies 
four large columns of the supplement ! It is impos- 
sible to imagine lucubrations more tactless and inept. 
" Are the ' secret reasons ' for the ineradicable 
sympathy of the Brazilians for France known ? 
They are the French ladies of easy virtue. As soon 
as a Brazilian has approached a Frenchwoman he is 
irremediably acquired by France : he is made a fool 
of, plucked, ruined by these diabolical (or angehc) 
creatures ; never mind, he cries : ' Long live 
France ! ' There is the great secret of the super- 
iority of France in Brazil over the good German, 
serious, industrious, good engineer, excellent com- 
mercial traveller," etc. 

As propaganda, it is iniquitous and clumsy. The 
Brazilian journalist who pocketed the large fee of 
German money to thus vilify his own countrymen 
must have laughed in his sleeve at the simple 
Teutons who surely took him seriously ; none of 
those whom he accuses of paying with large diamonds 
or thousands of sacks of coffee a kiss on the shoulder 
of a Parisian prostitute, will have taken him in the 
same way. But the Germans insist. 

The Berliner Tagehlatt (August 30, 1915) 
announced to us the creation of a Liga Braziliera 
pro Ger mania. This League has for object to 
combat the mendacious news made in England. A 
certain Alfredo Victor Frontenella has launched an 
appeal in the Brazilian paper La Tribuna. " Ger- 

— 252 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

many," he says in this manifesto, " is known and 
esteemed in really cultured circles, but nearly 
unknown among the masses. Most Brazilians were 
hypnotized by the attractions and atmosphere of 
Paris, by the theatres and cafes, by the ladies, the 
refuse of Paris " {sic). One guesses the conclusion. 
A propaganda which makes use of such means is 
judged by itself. Brazil has answered it as should 
be done. The German propaganda should not, 
however, be neglected on that account. The French 
language is more diffused in Brazil than the German 
tongue, but we could not excuse ourselves from 
speaking, in their own language, to those who do not 
read French. We have the advantage of truth in 
our war narratives. Let us sow them broadcast as, 
in Brazil, people are well-disposed to listen to us. 
Let us place before the eyes of the Brazilian demo- 
cracy the facts which peremptorily prove that 
Germany unchained the war, not to defend her 
independence and her existence, as the " Brazilian 
League for Germany " endeavours to prove, but to 
establish by a stroke of brutal force her dominion of 
the world. We do not dream of traducing the 
Germans by recalling to the Brazilians the nasty 
scandals of Berlin. Our methods are different. 
We can make the Brazilians see, if that were neces- 
sary, that France, which has such '' easy-going 
demi-monde " possesses also an incomparable 
moral and a superb army, an industry and a science 
which can measure themselves with those of Ger- 

--253 -^ 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

many, and many other things which that proud 

country is wrong in presenting as contemptible. 
* * * 

We shall say nothing here of German scholastic 
action in the United States. One knows what hopes 
the propaganda of Dernberg and his University 
collaborators had founded on the Germano-American 
populations, and to what serious checks, in the 
present and for the future, Germans will have to 
resign themselves. 

A new field of action has opened before the 
German agency in the case of the " recovered 
brethren *' of the Baltic Provinces and in Russian 
Poland. Warsaw was scarcely occupied by the 
German troops before professors from Berlin hast- 
ened to open the University with great pomp, and 
undertake the scholastic organization of the countrj^ 
As in Belgium, these manifestations will have no 
to-morrow. They are far from being pleasing to the 
people. They are none the less typical of the 
premeditation and actions of their authors. The 
war has ruined the position of the German traders 
and colonists in the Russian Empire. This position 
was considerable from every point of view, so con- 
siderable that many " German brothers " have 
preferred a momentary retreat towards the interior 
of the Slavonic Empire to " release " by the troops 
of WilHam H. It would seem that the Germans in 
the Baltic Provinces, and those who have lived for 
centuries under Russian rule, are not in the humour 

— 254 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

to exchange the hberal system they have known how 
to extort from the Petrograd Government for 
Prussian miHtarism. With regard to the Poles, it is 
certain that, as a whole, they would not readily 
submit to the scholastic proceedings formerly em- 
ployed against their brethren in Posnania. 



It is in the Balkans at this moment that it is 
interesting to observe the extension of Germanism by 
means of schools. Since the accession of William 
II, German policy has looked more and more closely 
towards the near East : a line through the Balkans 
as far as Constantinople and from thence to Bagdad 
would lead the commerce and power of Germany on 
the very flanks of her English rival in India and at 
Suez. The river-side dwellers of the European stage 
as far as Constantinople were " worked " at the same 
time as the Christians and Mahommedans of Asia. 

Serbia, sworn foe of Austro-Hungary, and entirely 
gained by Russia, had always offered small chance of 
success to the German propaganda. 

Roumania was more receptive. The industrial 
development of the country, commerce, mining and 
agricultural improvements had attracted a good 
number of Germans and Austrians, especially work- 
men and foremen. If one must believe the German 
reports published since the war in the daily Press ^ 

^ The Frankfurter Zeitung, a commercial and industrial 
medium, has particularly occupied itself with Roumania 

— 255 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

the French language is no longer spoken save in high 
society ; it has been replaced in the commercial 
world by German. The fact is that there exist, 
to-day, German schools in nearly all the great 
Roumanian centres. They are founded and sup- 
ported by religious communities, the greater 
number Protestant, but the German traders and 
the Empire interest themselves in their welfare with 
much solicitude. At Bucharest itself, the Protestant 
community maintains a " Real Schule," a commer- 
cial high school of four classes, a boys' elementary 
school, a commercial school and an elementary 
school for girls, boarding schools for boys and girls, 
and a Kindergarten. The fifty-six classes contained, 
in 1913-14, 2,400 pupils. The teaching was given 
by eighty-seven masters and mistresses, all lay, as 
were also the managers, and of whom more than 
half were subjects of the German Empire ; twenty- 
two of them possessed University degrees. Within 
the last ten years, the number of scholars has doubled, 
that of the professors has trebled. The leaving 
certificates of the " Real Schule " and of the com- 
mercial schools are of equal value with corresponding 
certificates of similar schools in Germany, Austria, 
and in Roumania itself, in view of advanced studies 
in any school, university, technical school or commer- 
cial academy in the three countries. This recogni- 

(see the Revue of Political Sciences, December, 1915, p. 
423 and following). An article on German schools appeared 
in it on February 20, 1915. 

— 256 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

tion is not the only encouragement granted to this 
scholastic group by the three Governments. The 
German community which owns it, expends upon it 
£30,000 annually. The least gathering is enhanced 
by the presence of German and Austrian official 
representatives, and of some Roumanian high 
authorities, often a member of the Royal family. 
The German school at Galatz comprises a boys' 
school of six classes and a girls' school of ten classes ; 
it is attended by nearly 500 scholars. The German 
society which works the petroleum region of Cam- 
pina, has founded in this town a school which, in a 
short time, has placed itself, in regard to its import- 
ance, next to that of Galatz. Flourishing German 
schools exist at Craiova, Constantza and Braila. 
Elsewhere, at Jassy, at Ploesci, at Pitesci, pastors 
have founded small schools which are managed by 
themselves. In the same way the Catholic schools 
under the Archbishop of Bucharest are directed by 
ecclesiastics and the Bishop of Jassy. The German 
tongue is not in all these schools the teaching 
language, but it holds the foremost place in them all. 
This is what entitles them to partake of the sub- 
sidies voted by the German Empire. No doubt it is 
thought insufficiently profitable for Germanism to 
develop the miserable and very intermittent schools 
of the German colonists who came from Russia into 
the Dobrudsha (then Turkish) in the time of Cathar- 
ine II and Alexander I. There are, however, in these 
schools only the children of German parents, who, 

— 257 — R 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

through many tribulations, have preserved intact 
their language and their original personality. 

Pupils of Roumanian nationality are fairly 
numerous in the German schools in the kingdom. 
The German reports underline with satisfaction that 
among their number there are sons of ministers, 
superior ofhcers, etc. As a matter of fact, the young 
Roumanians only attend to learn the German 
language. Attendance at a Roumanian State school 
alone giving an entrance to the professions, they do 
not follow the entire curriculum of the foreign 
school. On the other side, the contingent of Jewish 
scholars is relatively high. The reason is not, as the 
Germans would wish it to be thought, difficulties, 
for Jews, of entrance into the Roumanian schools, 
but the notable advantages that Jewish traders have 
found until now, and hope to find in the future, in 
Austro-Hungary and Germany. 

The Roumanian Administration has shown a great 
toleration towards the scholastic enterprises of the 
Germans. Itself possessing complete and well- 
managed educational organization and legislation, 
it reserves for itself, naturally, the control of foreign 
private schools. Doubtless the war will alter this 
state of affairs. The German propaganda has 
profoundly disturbed the Latin kingdom. One 
perceives that, on the east of the Rhine, notorious 
mistakes have been made. If the Frankfurter 
Zeitung, a newspaper often inspired by the com- 
mercial interests of the empire, has judged this 

— Z^S — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

moment opportune to recall the German scholastic 
work in Roumania, and to express the hope of " all 
men having at heart the pacific good understanding 
of nations on the basis of general efforts towards 
civilization " that it will thus continue in the future, 
what more characteristic indication can there be oi" 
the German fear of having compromised every- 
thing ! 

Are the German hopes any more assured in the 
case of their two new Allies, the Bulgars and the 
Turks ? 

The attentions of Germany towards Bulgaria are 
of somewhat recent date. The innumerable articles 
published since the war by the German Press to 
decide Bulgaria to array itself on the side of the 
Central Powers are all attuned to the same leit- 
motiv : Germany, and particularly her Emperor, 
are convinced that alone among the people of the 
Balkans the valiant and hard-working Bulgarian 
nation is capable of establishing, under the leader- 
ship of her eminent prince, order and progress in the 
peninsula : the injustice of the Treaty of Bucha- 
rest (1913), the work of the Entente Powers, has 
proved to Bulgaria that there was no other way of 
assuring for itself the economic and political supre- 
macy in the Balkans save by an Austro-German 
alliance. 

In truth, the policy of Berhn is to use Bulgaria as 
prison-warder so as to keep the Slavs away from 
" the route to Bagdad via Constantinople." 

~- 259 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

In spite of the acknowledged Germanophilism of 
the Prime Minister Radoslavoc, and the officers and 
students whom the German Government has known 
how to attract, there is in Bulgaria no important 
German focus. In 1913 there were only two German 
schools in the whole country. One alone, that in 
Sofia, prospered, thanks to the active patronage of 
the German Minister and Consul, and especially 
thanks to the liberality of the Sofia representative 
of the Krupp firm. The other, at PhihppoU, has 
never been able to expand, in spite of the " very 
laudable " subsidy of the Berlin Government. ^ It 
was at one time feared it would have to be closed. 
" There are no rich or influential Germans at Phihp- 
poli," wrote, in 191 3, Dr. Roloff in the Leipziger 
Neueste Nachrichten : the country is too poor 
to send its children to a school where they would have 
to pay fees. On the other hand the French schools, 
the Boys' College and the High School for Girls, are 
richly subsidized, admirably equipped, efficaciously 
protected by a Consul who is at PhihppoH only for 
that purpose, for there is, in the town, neither a 
French colony nor commerce. The same is the case 
with other French schools founded and directed by 
Catholic ecclesiastics, both in the capital and in 
several important centres in the country. 

There was a commotion in the German Press when 

the Echo de Paris suggested that France should 

profit by an eventual revision of the Treaty of 

1 2,000 marks in 1914, Queen Eleanor gave 200 marks, 

— 260 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

Bucharest to secure to herself the " protection '* of 
the Bulgarian Catholics. The Kdlnische Zeitung, 
the most important among the Catholic papers of 
Germany, repeated in its entirety the report read 
by Professor Bezensek, of Sofia, at the first Congress 
of Christian Education, which met at Vienna in 1912, 
at the same time as the Eucharistic Congress. This 
report was to prove how greatly prosperous were the 
non-provided schools directed by the French, and 
also that in those same schools instruction in the 
German tongue, given by Germans, played a very 
important part. Mr. Bezensek left the Germans 
to draw their own conclusions. In view of the 
increasing importance of Catholicism in Bulgaria, 
and the preference given by the Government to young 
men highly educated in foreign establishments, it 
was the duty of Catholics and of the German Govern- 
ment to take in hand themselves the spread of 
Deutschtum in the kingdom of the new ally. 

Will the destiny of Bulgaria be such as Ferdinand 
of Coburg dreams of ? It is less and less likely that 
it will be accomplished according to the desires of 
the Germanic Powers. So much the more reason for 
us to strengthen our scholastic effort, so as to guard 
ourselves against political surprises on the part of 
Bulgaria, as dangerous as that of 1915. 

At the beginning of last year, a Councillor of the 
German Government, Dr. Schmidt, inspector of 
German schools in foreign lands, inaugurated his 
work as re-organizer of the Ottoman school system 

— a6i — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

at Constantinople. Until just before the war, it was 
the French model which prevailed. There were 
more than 500 French schools in the Turkish empire, 
taught by French masters or directed by Frenchmen, 
according to the methods and with the help of 
French books, in the language and the spirit of 
France. To-day it is Germany who dominates. 
She hastens to take possession of the country, as if 
she feared her inability to stay there. The " Ger- 
mano-Turkish Association " founded last year at 
Constantinople under the aegis of the German 
Embassy, subsidizes schools,^ buys buildings and 
land,^ establishes German boarding-schools and 
German lectures.^ The said Association has in- 
scribed propaganda through the school at the head 
of its programme. Already the newspapers vaunt 
the surprising results acquired.'* The establishments, 
managed for the most part by religious bodies or 
German ecclesiastics, have seen the number of their 
pupils trebled. In many cases it has been impossible 
to satisfy all the requests for admission. 

The High School at Pera, founded by the Ger- 
mano-Swiss Scholastic Corporation, numbered in 
191 2-13 600 pupils ; at the beginning of 1915 it 

^ At Bagdad and Jerusalem. 

2 At Haidai Pasha. V 

^ At Nichantach, Broussa, Konia. 

* Heading, the Frankfurter Zeitung of June 30, 1915. 
The Berliner Tageblatt, another organ of German commerce, 
and a strong advocate of the route Hamburg-Constan- 
tinople-Bagdad, of July I, 1915. 

— 262 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

had 1,000. The leaving certificates of this school 

admit to study at the Universities in Germany. 

Thus young Ottomans are attracted to advanced 

studies and the German higher technical schools. 
* * * 

It should be carefully noted that already the Ger- 
man Government has assigned to Constantinople a 
complete phalanx of professors to occupy the Chairs 
of advanced studies. The Germans are organizing 
themselves. While, for example, the primary school 
at Jerusalem (with six classes) and the " Real 
Schule " (founded in 1905, and qualifying for a 
certificate the volunteer of one year's standing) are a 
collective foundation of the German colony, the 
Protestant Community and that of the Templars. 
The " Real Schule " at Bagdad, founded in 1909, is 
an establishment of the only German scholastic 
society in the place. A similar society created a 
" Real Schule " at Aleppo in 191 1. 

In three years the number of pupils has trebled. 
In 1913, there were 107 Turks and Persians among 
128 scholars. The correspondent of the Berliner 
Tageblatt, who visited this school in June, 1915, 
informs us that this school combines children of 
eight years old and young men of twenty-three. 
These pupils learn German. But of what use will 
this tongue be to them ? There is no important 
German colony in that region. France has strongly 
influenced Syria, by subsidizing countless schools. 
Commerce is carried on in French. In the offices of 

— 263 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

the important commercial houses, and even at the 
head-quarters of the German Bagdad railway, corre- 
spondence is carried on in French. The same writer 
has seen, at Aleppo, a fair-haired boy translating 
Arabic under the superintendence of a tonsured 
young master : the child was the son of the German 
Consul and the master a French ecclesiastic. So the 
visitor asked himself how German effort will succeed 
in overcoming the existent difficult conditions. He 
counts upon the disappearance of French influence 
and speech. Is he sure the German will prevent the 
Turk or the Arab from becoming predominant ? 
The mixture of races, Turks, Arabs, Jews, Armeni- 
ans, Circassians, etc., that one meets in the schools 
there, terrify him. He has written his article 
precisely to interest German patriotism and finance 
in this difficult work.^ The war, we truly hope, 
will render vain his calculations and over-hasty 
efforts. Germany will have severe wounds to dress 
before it can listen to appeals to its liberality for far- 
away " ideals." 

* * * 

Germany has a vital interest in retaking and 
improving her position in the East and in South 

1 The German society " Duvev " {Detiischer Durerhund) 
has launched in the newspapers an appeal for German 
books : this Society carries on propaganda through art, 
music, exhibitions, and popular lectures. " It requires 
a large and varied library ! " {Fmnkfuyter Zeitung, March 
6, 1 91 6). 

— 264 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

America, as soon as peace is declared. She will, for 
this purpose, make the effort of which the war will 
have shown the necessity. She will avoid, at any 
rate in the beginning, the mistakes in tact committed 
in the past. She will also avoid the procedure 
which Dernberg formerly praised, that is to say, the 
use of force as the unique means of success in the 
countries and with the nations which do not as yet 
participate in the benefit of '* Kultur " and German 
organization. 

The authority of the Allies, on the contrary, will 
emerge from this war singularly enhanced. Even 
now they are preparing to consolidate their ancient 
ties, and to effect new ones with the nations among 
which German rivalry has never ceased to do them 
an ill turn. 

The role of the institutions founded by clear- 
sighted men in England, France, and Italy to prepare 
the way for the commerce and influence of their 
countries by the help of an intellectual and moral 
penetration, if their action is well sustained, will be 
this time decisive. Doubtless, these institutions 
will require all the moral and methodical support of 
their Governments ; they will equally demand from 
their respective Parliaments important material 
help. But it belongs especially to those who will 
profit from the good will conquered or re-conquered, 
to the ship-owners, bankers, merchants and traders, 
to obtain for private initiative the appropriate means 
for the development of their activities. A staff 

— 265 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

well-chosen and fully prepared for its particular and 
delicate task will accomplish the remainder. The 
wider, freer, and more intelligent, the action of the 
" pioneers " the better it will be accepted, and the 
more fruitful will it be. 

•I* Sp ^ 9|C ^ 

Since writing the above, facts have proved the 
truth of the forecasts contained in this volume. 

One by one the nations have closed their doors on 
Germany, and she finds that the efforts she expended 
on laborious propaganda have proved of no 
avail. 

It would seem, however, that Germany has 
realized her mistakes and is devising means to 
prevent their repetition. 

One of these is — as has already been mentioned ^ — 
the founding of a special university [Auslands- 
hochschule) for the training of the German agents — 
professors, engineers, consuls and missionaries — to 
be sent to foreign countries. 

This scheme has already begun to Be realized in 
Prussia — though different in form to the Imperial 
Ideal of its original promoters. 

A long report on this subject was laid on the table 
of the Prussian House in January, 1917,^ in order 
to justify the demands for additional grants in aid 
of the development of the " study of foreign coun- 
tries " made by the Prussian Minister of Education. 

* See above, p. 243. 

' Kolnische Zeitmig, January 31, 1917. No. 104. 

— 266 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

The idea of an Imperial Institution has been aban- 
doned, as being contrary to the Constitution, which 
leaves each State free to determine its own Educa- 
tional Policy. 

The present plan does not aim solely at the 
preparation of the future masters of the German 
schools in foreign countries for their propagandist 
work or merely at the education of consuls or other 
agents for the duties they will later be called upon 
to perform, but is organized with the view that 
" the whole German nation should he trained in World 
Politics.'' 

Every studious German — whether he is likely to 
serve the cause of the Fatherland abroad or to remain 
at home in the metropolis — should be permeated 
with the greatness of the German world interests. 

The discretion of the Prussian Government not 
to force an Imperial Institution on the Federal 
States — out of " respect for the Constitution " — is 
amazing. The avowal which masks this restraint 
is even more so. " The war has shown, even to 
those who did not realize it, how great was our 
ignorance of Foreign Thought and how greatly 
we need to judge the present according to the 
principles of Political Science. Our Field of Action 
is the World. . . ." 

Divested of its administrative pathos this passage 
signifies that the Germans realize — thanks to the 
war— their failure as regards International Politics 
and the futiUty of attempting to treat International 

— 267 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

Questions according to the narrow laws of their 
own National Policy. 

The report recommends — not a Central Institution 
but rather the decenfralization of this instruction. 
All the universities will take an active part in 
achieving the aim of general culture in matters 
appertaining to the knowledge of Foreign Countries. 
Thus Koenigsberg and Breslau will deal with 
questions relating to the Slavonic countries : Bonn 
will give the preference to France and Holland, etc. 
All the Faculties, those of Philosophy as well as 
Law, will be called upon to assist in this work. 
The special schools of Oriental Studies — such as 
the Colonial Institute at Hambourg and the schools 
at the various Universities — will widen their sphere, 
but all educational institutions will endeavour to 
enlarge the scope of their instruction so that it may 
embrace, not only utilitarian subjects necessary 
to a professor, missionary, engineer or merchant, 
but the wider studies dealing with general questions 
affecting foreign countries. 

The Prussian reserve is in accordance with her 
policy. The idea of a World Empire must be 
created in the same way as the ideal of a National 
Empire has been formed. The best agents for this 
purpose are the universities, which the Government 
at Berhn — thanks to the influence of the professors 
at the capital — have, more or less, under its control. 
An Imperial Institute, for which the political parties 
in the Reichstag would, or would not, vote grants 

— 268 — 



AS A WAR NURSERY 

in aid, as the case might be, would be entirely 
removed from its influence. There is not, therefore, 
to be an " Auslandshochschule,'* but Prussia by setting 
the example to the universities in the other States 
hope to interest the princes of commerce, industry 
and finance in the movement. 

Berlin and Miinster alone will create new chairs. 
At Berlin the new professor will be attached to the 
School of Oriental Studies and will complete the 
philological instruction by a practical course on the 
Eastern World. Berlin is also to have a reader in 
Bulgarian. At Miinster a course of the history of 
Christianity in the East will be added to the Faculty 
of Theology. As " the study of the Romance 
languages has always been its specialty," a reader 
in Spanish is to be attached to the staff at the 
Bonn University. 

Thus does Prussia intend to solve the problem of 
an educational organization destined to develop 
in the minds of all Germans a more exact and 
complete understanding of foreign countries and 
" Foreign Thought." 

The Germans have certainly made progress in 
theory, but there are certain things which cannot 
be taught in the lecture room. The lamentable 
failure of her propaganda in the United States 
shows how far the German mind is from under- 
standing the soul of a foreign nation. 

Neither the professional diplomat, Bernstorff, nor 
Dennburg, the man of business, has been able to 

— 269 — 



THE GERMAN SCHOOL 

achieve his goal, in spite of his personal experience 
and the unlimited means placed at his disposal. 
Each failed because he was unable to free himself 
from Prussian methods and German mentality. 
Similarly, abroad, the diplomatic agents and the 
" pioneers " of Germany have met with the same 
checks for the same reasons. 

The nations, even those which conserve strict 
neutrality, are manifesting to-day, by means of a 
war for liberty, their displeasure. Germany has 
understood. She is, therefore, preparing to undergo 
an apprenticeship in World Politics. She still 
declares that " the World is her Field of Action.'* 
Let us see to it that we are not evicted ! 



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